“Nosy Parker”

ESPatch Feb 15, 2015 11 comments

I will start with a design challenge I have recently completed.

My client had lived with this floating ‘peanut’ bed for some time and was ready for a change…

…a deserted island in an ocean of grass.

This garden had some great bones and great oaks, the layout was just lacking purpose, rationale and flow.

A recently refurbished back deck was in a spacial war with the encroaching peanut, a peanut that was lined with small ‘mortared’ chunks of limestone and holy rocks…what is this obsession with concreting things into a landscape?

To make matters worse, the mortar that was holding these small rocks solidly above ground had to be about a foot deep. Oh yes, I said a foot deep.

Is-anyone-there-Yes-what-do-you-see-Iceberg

They were like little limestone icebergs, small above ground but with enough concrete below to half fill a dumpster and keep my crew busy for half a day. They were the first thing on my sledgehammers ‘things to hit’ list.

The second thing I wanted to address was the integration of the decking steps into the landscape to visually and functionally give them purpose and anchor them into the new scheme.

A visualization was generated to capture and communicate the design intent:

Over-sized Oklahoma flagstone was introduced to bridge the stairwells, creating an expanded central planting bed in the void between them.

Here is the new layout before any planting:

And looking the other way,

Before:

Visualization:

Installation:

Fence-softening loquats and bamboo muhly grasses ease the transition between turf and flagstone. The new layout creates a flowing and naturalistic aesthetic.

An intense stare from this piece of flagstone.

Back in the Patch…

…somebody had been sticking his nose where he shouldn’t,

through a corrugated metal fence of all things to fight with a pit bull.

The end result:

Fence / Napoleon complex: 7 stitches, Pit Bull: 0

The cookies have almost gone for another year.

I knew those pallets would come in useful.

Gopher plants are in full swing,

Euphorbia rigida

they look great around broad paddles and are particularly effective when weaving through edging boulders.

Fatsia Japonica have finished flowering and are now

producing thousands of green berries.

These will mature to shiny black as winter draws to an end, a great late winter feast for the birds.

Now this is what I call an infestation!

I have this scale (Diaspis echinocacti) on two opuntia paddles.

I had no idea how these tiny oysters functioned.

Treatment was easy…snap off infected paddle and discard.

Stay Tuned For:

“Branching Out”

All material © 2015 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“Under the Knife”

ESPatch Oct 23, 2014 7 comments

Oh yes, we have been quite busy of late.

Meet Cactus Man Jr II, an intellectual currently working on his doctoral thesis “Humans Obsession with Opuntia Paddle Personification.”

The slots/wounds at the side of his head will heal over (and secure) the glasses over time…at least that is the goal.

crazy-clown-doctor

Cactus Man Jr II’s grandfather wasn’t quite so lucky when he fell under my knife a few years back.

As you can see, I was significantly less ‘invasive’ with my surgical procedures this time around so I have high hopes for a full recovery.

We each claimed a paddle and got creative,

or somewhat disturbing.

Mist flowers are one of my favorite insect attractors this time of year. They work really well along side steely blue basketgrass and artemesia Silver King, but any artemesia will do.

Just add a splash of Esperanza, a hint of rosemary and stir slowly over a number of years.

I have been performing enough yucca and sotol haircuts recently that my forearms resemble pin cushions.

joe-dirt11 I can live with this mullet-look for a while but then the control freak in me kicks-in and I reach for the Fiskars.

Ahh, it can breathe again.

I even had some pine-cone cactus growing at the base of the plant that I had forgotten about.

This sotol at a clients house was a monster, it must have had 10+ years of old growth at the base, some of it buried.

It took me about an hour to work around it, trimming its spiny locks. I was spiked, bitten by fire-ants, clawed at and by the time I was finished both of my ears were bleeding.

Next time I will were some protection. I think a couple of these with an iced turban should look significantly ridiculous.

Here is a before shot of the front area:

And after clean-up:

A fresh layer of Tejas black gravel was put down in the front of the house and a planter planted with…

a bonsai Juniper tree.

I think I will have to get one of these twisted trees myself.

Two additional steel planters were planted up with spineless sotol

Dasylirion longissimum

…if any plant can take the heat, this one can.

At another clients house I was called out to perform a postmortem on an agave that had recently gone into decline.

Here is the agave a few months ago:

and now:

There were some tell-tale signs; holes in the leaves, unearthly odor, it was a mess. A gentle tug released the heart of the plant confirming it was once again the work of the notorious agave villain:

Dum dum duummm…

Mr Snout-Nose…AKA: “The Evil Weevil”

Known to his inner circle as:

Scyphophorus acupunctatus

This time the sneaky villain had managed to clone himself.

This poor agave was full of his duplicates and a disturbing amount of the weevil’s grubs that were now furiously devouring the inside of the agave, causing it to turn to mush and collapse on itself.

It wasn’t a pretty site,

and it wasn’t a pretty smell.

This beetle is deadly for agaves.

I have lost many a fine specimen plant to the trunked-tyrant myself, particularly Agave Americana which, as I understand it, tastes like freshly baked pecan pie and cream to Mr Weevil.

If infected I take out the dying plant and cover the entire area with diatomaceous earth. I avoid planting in the same hole.

As for other plants that may be effected or at risk, I put a thick circle of diatomaceous earth around the base of the plants and replenish regularly.

Oh, and when I find a dead weevil or one journeying in the open looking for a host agave to decimate, I turn into Vlad the Impaler. I leave tiny clumps of them on ceremonial skewers to deter others…and I like insects.

“No Bear, it is not a waste!”

On a brighter note after retching a few times getting the rotted limbs of the agave into the bed of my truck, I did take some time to snap a few pictures of the landscape that I installed last spring.

Before:

Lots of linear lines, patchy turf and odd stepping-stone flagstones needed to be taken out.

There were some nice corten steel planters to work with though.

Here is the visual I generated for the space to communicate a more organic and naturalistic aesthetic:

Installation:

Linheimer Muhly grasses filling in well,

along with the gulf coast muhly.

No more grass to water and cut here.

Snapshots in the Patch:

Celosia is setting seed.

Mexican firebush threatens to ignite some crusty old inland sea oats.

Miscanthus grasses glow gold this time of the year,

and Salvia Leucantha just keeps on going…yes the Vitex is still there!

Stay Tuned For:

“Shelling Out”

All material © 2014 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.