"A Beer in Time Saves Nine"

ESPatch Aug 6, 2008 0 comments

(I was not in time and it took me 9.5 beers to realize what needed to be executed!)

I looked at the whole central area of my yard and pondered and wondered, wondered and pondered, and drank a few more cold ones.

BBuuuurpppp!

I could do all of this pondering without immediately passing out because It was a little cooler outside tonight thanks to the total charlatan wimp “Eduard” tropical storm, or more commonly referred to as “drizzler-good-for-nothing”. He promised a biblical flooding and gave thimbles of dew.

The only thing he was good for was a slight reprieve in the overall ambient temperature… it was now only 90 degrees. I knew I would have only half a day to “freeze some turbans” and work, before Texas turned back into the red planet again.

My new pathways have opened up a new central bed that needs significant prep-work if I am to be ready to plant it up in the fall …if I can only bring myself to wait that long. (mmmust control my syndrome.)

Mmmmm mulch.
The trouble is, this bed is still a foot deep in pine bark mulch, and has plants in it that I need to relocate (as well as the pine bark) to other parts of my yard.

Pine bark removal.
What I have in mind requires much more drainage and a certain type of soil that requires further research….I have decided on Lavender! lots of it! so much In fact that I intend the Lavender to fill the entire area!
One plant – one mass planting.
This book may have had something to do with this!

This bed requires some low-level shrub otherwise it will block the view to the other parts of the yard, not acceptable. I have such a diversity of plants in my other beds that if I continued this randomness it would make for a “too busy” aesthetic. I also considered a mass planting of Dune grass/Lime grass but became leery of the”creeping” – I wanted something different here, something quiet, something easy on the eyes…
If anyone has any experience with ground planted Lavender in Central Texas, I would very much like to hear about it.

“As Ceaser, I demand more experimentation, more risk taking. I say give Lavender a try!
Down to more randomness”.
This is a particularly daunting endeavor considering every Lavender I have ever planted in the ground has died really quickly, (I believe to excess moisture), but this time…………. this time, things will be different, this time I will be better prepared.
After all nothing could be more of a disaster than my spluttering tomato plants…could it?

“I am Maximus, the general who became a slave.
The slave who became a gladiator.
The gladiator who defied an empire and said…
I WILL grow a large swath of Lavender on the East-Side
of Austin in Central Texas, and it SHALL be great.”

The remnants of my home depot “figure of eight” bed. The Sand Cherry shrub will stay for now, I am afraid if I move it at this time of year it will surely die. The little succulents that I removed from this area, I tucked into the crevices between some of my new moss boulders.

Here is the future Lavender bed cleaned out except for the Cacti – this I intend to move to the front yard soon. The large Rosemary on the right should work out well with the Lavender.

Vew of the future planting area. The fallen Agave beanstalk will shortly be removed (as soon as I have taken another 100 pups from it!)…
(do I hear sirens and a straight jacket opening?)

Must have another hundred! Must have anoth……
The Agave felling is going to make for a great future post, I am thinking…..lighter fluid……more limbo dancing…..An Agave sawing ceremony, complete with tequila induced mariachi yelling etc. etc. You get the picture.

Talking of more pups, remember this? It has filled in
quite well…in fact..

It is starting to spread!

I only noticed today that these octopus suckers were falling off the host, some have already germinated in the surrounding decomposed granite!

Tiny, tiny, offspring, amazing!
I pulled off a whole bunch more of these suckers and threw them into my adjacent cactus/succulent bed to see if they will do the same. I love the random possibility.

Staying with the octopus theme for a moment….

Okay, okay, so a giant squid then!

Here is another succulent from the same circular bed that has developed a more linear approach to self seeding…there is one of these on each leaf. I love this bed! I am interested to see how many of these plants will make it through the winter, because I cover nothing.

On a final note, I broke down and planted another Agave. This one should provide a good color contrast to the Loquat.

Other “Tom Jones’s”: in the yard right now:

Purple Fountain Grass

and more purple: “Err I think I will go with the sage please, oh and could I have a side of blackened Echinacea purpurea with that as well please”.

I intend to keep these Sages as compact as possible, tightly pruned
for the rest of their lives. I love this plant, but leggy
it is a different animal….not in my zoo.

One more with purple heart as a backdrop.