In the Spirit of Halloween

For a gardener, I'm terribly under educated when it comes to insects, and quite naturally, my ignorance leads to fear. I have no idea what this bug is, but it scared the you-know-what out of me. I was pulling weeds near the eyesore dog fence and just assumed it was a leaf. Imagine that. My face was within inches of this "leaf" before I noticed it was staring back at me. I just about had a heart attack, but once I recoverd and took a closer look, I figured he didn't look so deadly after all. He even stood still long enough for me to get a pic of him.

Here's one of the few I can identify:

No clue what this is. Looks mean!

A few more horrifying moments caught on camera:






AAAAHHHHH!!!!!! Oh, wait...

September

Things are looking much happier now that the heat wave has broken. The flowering senna (cassia corymbosa) has had a few sporadic blooms since late spring, but now is it's time to really show off.



Beside it is a clump of turk's cap. It had been looking a bit beat-up, but last weekend's rain encouraged it to freshen up and put on a new flush of blooms.



Another view of the senna. That tiny yellow fuzz ball at the bottom of the pic is a barrel cactus not quite the size of a golf ball. A test of patience, as so many things can be.



In the back yard I have a small clump of cattails in a stock tank pond. It sits in the dappled shade of a large bur oak. I think it would prefer more sun but it did have a few blooms on it this year. A few weeks ago one of them flopped over into the water. I kept thinking I should cut it off before it made a mess, but the pruners were never in my hand when the thought crossed my mind, despite my constant piddling. I'm glad I let it be. I've never seen baby cattails before. Aren't they cute?

Home Grown Tomatoes

In March I planted three tomato plants, Early Girl, Lemon Boy and Sweet 100. Today's harvest isn't exactly the bounty of my wildest vegetable-growing dreams, but I'm excited nonetheless.



Next to the garden is one of my favorite plants, batface cuphea:





Reminds me of someone...

Tech Turf Update - Day 31

Tech Turf

I decided to rip out my old lawn (St. Augustine) and replace it with a buffalo grass hybrid called Tech Turf. After months of hemming and hawing over whether I was really prepared to do this, I decided it was time to sh*t or get off the pot, so to speak. So I went to Home Depot and rented a sod cutter.

The sod cutter just about kicked my ass, but in the end I successfully made the yard look like a complete disaster.

Next step, draw the new bedlines and install edging.

Then I outlined the beds with a band of decomposed granite. I'm going for a desert-tropical look. The beds are like the "islands", with granite sand "beaches" and an "ocean" of cool green grass.

The Tech Turf arrived via UPS. I ordered 4 flats of 72 plugs. Hard to believe this cost $200. An expensive experiment, but I am optimistic.

Here's what a typical plug looks like:

One week later:

Day 23 - I've had to do a lot of weed pulling this past week. I guess it's inevitable with so much bare dirt, full sun and regular water. It's been between 95 and 103 degrees every day since I planted the plugs. This stuff must love the heat. Look at how much it's grown already!

To be continued...

I'll leave you with a cute pic of Bouncer snuggling with Henry on a recent trip to Port Aransas. She's not normally allowed on the bed, but since we were on vacation... Sweet!

Aliens

I've had this pachypodium (not sure what kind) for about 4 years. It stays outdoors most of the year and indoors for the winter. Every October it blooms with tropical looking white flowers.



This winter, for the first time, the flowers were followed by these alien-looking pods.



They've gradually opened over the last couple of weeks. So cool.





And speaking of aliens, here's a shout out to leatherleaf mahonia. Flowered tentacles in January:



Followed by powder blue berries and rubbery, almost translucent new growth in March:




Nanu-Nanu!

Bloom Day - March 15, 2009

Bridal Wreath Spirea

Columbine, behind bars

Scabiosa and aloe

Abutilon

Tomato... Oh, the antici... ...pation!

Three Days

Austin just had three days of much needed rain. Poor Bouncer, she's in and out of the bathtub 10 times a day due to all the mud. I need to figure out what to do with the areas of the lawn that she pulverized to death last summer. I think a truckload of decomposed granite and a weekend of elbow grease might do the trick.

Look at those muddy feet!

I'm vacuuming, Sweet B. I think you should stay outside for a little while...

What're You Lookin' At?

An anole outside our living room window, interrupted from his afternoon snooze.