Water Lillies

“I Caught a Live One!”

ESPatch Dec 22, 2010 4 comments

In 1977 NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft launched into space carrying phonographs called the Golden Records containing pictures and sounds meant to show extraterrestrials a glimpse of life on Earth and where we are located in space. Credit: NASA

“This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours”.

President Jimmy Carter

clack…click, click..etc.etc.

(“So that’s where they live! Buckle up lads, “beaks” at the ready, these humans are almost all liquid already so save your enzymes!”)

What are the chances?…Last week I found a dead wheel bug on the Patch steps, then, who did I see slowly (and I mean slowly) walking across a new pathway I was laying at a client’s house?

No wonder that “beak” is so painful if it spikes an unsuspecting hand, look at that thing, lethal…a fact I was very conscious of, as my camera hand almost touched this very “Alien” looking assassin bug.

“Game over, man, game over!…”

It was also using it’s beak to probe the ground as it walked. If you look really carefully you can see the 2nd set of eyes behind the main ones, oh yes, with a creature as bizarre as this, two eyes would just be way too normal? I was happy though, to finally get to see one of these insects in motion…slow motion.

“And that’s all I gotta to say about them wheel bugs Jenny”.

“That’s a good thing Forrest…we were all kinda tired of hearing about them assassins anyways.”

“Jeennny”!

Moving On:

Ornamental grasses have their brown and purple winter clothes on, even though we touched the mid-eighties this week in the Patch. (Sorry all my UK readers).

The brown and purple colors in this dwarf miscanthus contrast well with the silver of artemesia.

The seed heads form many different shapes,

and look great set against shady areas, in areas they can catch the sun…Texas snow.

With the warmer temperatures this week, my Madame Ganna Walska decided to throw out what has to be the final water lily of the year (I keep saying this, I know I do). The purple on the lily is much more pronounced at this time of year as it is on this…

…oh, I don’t need to tell you by now! I really should put these fallen celosia on the compost pile, but there are seeds in there, seeds I tell you…

“Hey, get off that swing seat…there is shelling to be done”!

We have all gathered so much celosia seed this year I now use the prospect of more shelling as a threat, that and the ever vigilant Santa, naturally! …“Clean up your toys NOW, or do you want to shell a tray’s worth”?

…Works every time.

This festive was a pass-along from Bob at Draco Gardens, it has grown into quite the snow drift. Behind it is…

…one of three basket grasses I have planted in the Patch, this is the oldest one. I like the way this plant looks flanked with prostate rosemary, the rosemary looks great in bloom set against this succulent, it’s pale blue flowers are almost the same color.

Nolina microcarpa

Nolinas are actually members of the Agave family and they are native to the Southwestern U.S.

They easy to grow, heat & drought tolerant, evergreen, deer proof, not fussy about soil & hardy down to 10 degrees F, what more can we ask for? It is amazing how underutilized these succulents are in our landscapes, they look excellent when planted in raised beds and allowed to “spill” over the edge like this one. Nolina microcarpa requires absolutely no Summer water once established. The leaves were used by Native Americans for weaving baskets & mats, hence the common name.

After last years prolonged freezes I was sure these unprotected barrel cacti would be for the compost pile, but I was wrong. They had a little discoloration on their marginal edges but other than that, they were surprisingly just fine, even the little ones. These leaves are going to be a joy to pick up.

Finally:

“Winter” in the Patch:

Stay Tuned for:

“Ho Ho Ho-ja Santa!”

All material © 2010 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant) 14th century planet Earth techniques.

Pumpkin “Patch”

ESPatch Oct 31, 2010 14 comments

The Old Ghost:

Over the water an old ghost strode
To a churchyard on the shore,
And over him the waters had flowed
A thousand years or more,
And pale and wan and weary
Looked never a sprite as he;
For it’s lonely and it’s dreary
The ghost of a body to be
That has mouldered away in the sea.

Over the billows the old ghost stepped,
And the winds in mockery sung;
For the bodiless ghost would fain have wept
Over the maiden that lay so young ‘Mong the thistles and toadstools so hoary;

And he begged of the waves a tear,
But they shook upwards their moonlight glory,
And the shark looked on with a sneer
At his yearning desire and agony.

Thomas Lovell Beddoes

Oh come on…what did you expect?

Tis Halloween in the Patch once again, the ESP witches, all wizened and hunched, are pulling their hessian sack shoals tightly around their emaciated bony shoulders as cooler weather blows through central Texas.

Seeds are being gathered, pumpkins carved and as a family we have come to the stark realization that we just do not quite fit in with the “normal” people that inhabit the planet…

…based on other people’s reactions at the “Goblins in the Garden” event at the Wildflower center, http://www.wildflower.org/ we were the distinctly “unusual” group wandering among the subdivision masses. I had the impression that we were generally regarded more as a potential Texas cult rather than a friendly family attending a Halloween event. I have no idea why?

While we were wandering around the grounds scaring rather young children, I caught this dreamy

Muhlenbergia capillaris

catching some late afternoon rays, I have been observing this grass currently in its prime all over Austin. It looks really good as a mass planting, I cannot wait to embed a few of these cloudy grasses in my own Hell-Strip for next year, perhaps after my celosia dies and makes room.

There has been lots of unusual activities in the Patch this week in the build up to Halloween…

from scary nurses and unhygienic anesthesiologists…

performing all manner of diabolical medical procedures with even odder surgical devices and hygiene masks, (it continually amazes me what creative uses kids come up with for the ubiquitous pull-up) to some serious Patch tinkering…

…She sanded and I hammered this to that, that to something else in an attempt at a makeshift fairy house (she has just watched the latest installment of the Tinkerbell movie saga and is fairy-home obsessed). Bits of old wood from my woodpile mingled with leftovers from the construction of my garden bench http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2010/04/garden-benches/ it was all up for grabs as she directed me as to what should go where…

“A roof! Daddy we forgot a roof, and a ladder, how will they get up to the soft pink bed?

Humph, err fly?

“No, we need a ladder in case their wings are wet!”

Humph, oh I see. (Trudges once again to shed woodpile, muttering under breath).

It finally took rickety shape, and it unintentionally had an uncanny Frank Lloyd Write undertone to its architecture style, obviously it is intended for a modernist retro-fairy. The tissue paper was apparently the bed, and then the interior design commenced…finally!

This was the moment she had really been waiting for, I almost lost her during the construction phase, like all construction phases, it was taking too long and went way over budget.

She surrounded the structure with a dense perimeter of…

and sprinkled some now fading fall asters over the “bed”, quite the romantic touch.

Within minutes we had one of those insects that I have never yet been able to identify hovering next to the bed asters…to her it looked close enough to a real fairy to be a real fairy!

This one goes out to you Mr Bell :-) http://thelazyshadygardener.blogspot.com/

What IS this?

Moving Walskeringly On…

My water lilies have turned the corner in terms of vigor and bloom size, a sure sign that we are heading to winter,

and the gnarly Texas flies are finally slowing down…Brrr. This fly was huge. (Left knee dislocates, pops back in, then involuntarily drags me around a nearby decomposed granite pathway).

“I still love him ESP”.

My fragrant mist flowers have started blooming, this little moth matched the color of the flowers perfectly. This plant always attracts so many insects, some quite unusual.

This week has been the week of the caterpillar in the Patch. I have never seen so many, all colors, all spiny.

And to finish, the moment you have all been waiting for, what perfect timing that it is Halloween to herald the rather short finale of the nail-biting, engrossing climax of the tale to end all tales.

Grab a wee dram and wet yer whistle, put your soil stained socks up on your pond weed covered ottoman (well you will want to get into the nautical spirit of things after all), pour some fish emulsion in your hair, inhale deeply and dive into the depressing briny waters of the…

Did you follow all of that?

A traditional Irish turnip Jack-o’-lantern from the early 20th century. Photographed at the Museum of Country Life, Ireland. Image taken from rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid under the creative commons GNU Free Documentation License

Happy Halloween from us all in the Patch.

Stay Tuned for:

“I Decapitated a Gopher”

And immediately regretted it.

All material © 2010 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.