The last time I posted, this cactus must have been a pup!

Yes it has been that long…so long in fact that in the interim WordPress changed its page editor on me and moved all my tools around.

Gutenbergers!

Where to start…where to start?

 

It has been so long that Loki is now pushing-on the size of Kumo especially clad in her winter coat.

She now uses him as a warm, funky-smelling cushion on our colder nights.

At 10 months Loki is already dominating the patch and keeping the dove and squirrel population firmly at bay.

No complaints from me.

I just hope she doesn’t challenge the local urban fox like she did the other night…that was a screaming match.

I always open the door very slowly to let her in the house at this point, no telling what unfortunate creature may be dangling from her mouth…oh yes.

On an equally gross note my satsuma tree put out an equally disgusting array of bile fruit (as per the annual norm). I do like the winter color they put on though which is the main reason I grow them.

At least that is what I keep telling myself.

As usual I bribed my daughter into some satsuma ‘sampling’, it is now an annual Patch tradition after all and one that never fails to have me in stitches.

“Same as last year Dad…err, disgusting?!”.

You never know, one of these years they might just be sweet and delicious instead of generating unsavory faces akin to the infamous Montreal escargot tasting of 2017, but I highly doubt it.

The tranquil view of a nice sunset is somewhat diminished with a rather large refrigerator lurking around in the landscape and luckily for me it was bulk pick up week. Yes, it was finally time for her to leave for probably less greener pastures.

Eager to stay where she had been for the last 9 months she had one more fight left in her…

…Stupid Refrigerator.

The end of an era.

Or is it?

Now we get to look at the backside of it from our front windows for a few days.

The fridge that just keeps giving.

Staying with major domestic appliances for a moment, we no longer have to go outside (or fight with a tarp) to use our washer and dryer. Oh no, we now have this smart stackable ‘indoor’ solution…

The sheer luxury.

These two Texas sages

Leucophyllum frutescens

have been getting leggier and leggier over the years, it was time for some drastic hook-saw action.

“Owf with their Heads!”

Now to wait and see what happens.

I have read that Cenizo does not respond at all well to heavy pruning.

I think leaving but a few feet of stump sticking out of the ground qualifies as heavy pruning. Worst case I will replant, but I am curious to see what happens and how they will respond to their brutal decapitations.
That adjacent yucca is next on my pruning list, it drives me crazy when there is dead growth hanging down like that.

 

This one is quite tall and requires some help from a cedar stump to support a spiraling trunk.

Moving Along…

Wheel-barrows full of turf?
Dirt trenches and lots of running back and forth? It can mean only one thing…

Another client ‘Normandy Phase’ was well under way.

This time the war-zone was a large back garden in Austin. The goal was to blend some hardscaping and plantings around the house and introduce a water element while nibbling away at the overall turf coverage (turferage).

Pallets of oversized Oklahoma flagstone were dropped at the front of the property and hauled to the back on dollies…a very time consuming activity. I like to use the natural edge of the flagstone to define planting beds or contouring around turf areas, eliminating the need for any additional and superfluous edging materials that always look unnatural in a landscape.

The good people at https://hillcountrywatergardens.com/ drilled a hole through this attractive moss boulder to create a low-level, naturalistic water feature off the back deck.

Here it is up and ‘running’:

The water feature uses rain water collection tanks to top up levels in the hot months. Cafe river rock was mostly used to hide the water collection basin and was in keeping with the natural color palette of the scheme.

Lighting courtesy of
Steve Serum at keepinitgreenaustin was also introduced to illuminate the area and to broadcast up into the distant oak trees.

Turfstone was used to form a connecting pathway at the back of the garage and to aid drainage. A steel barrier was needed here to hold back the turf and soil.

I will leave you with this very bizarre Opuntia know as Pricklypear (opuntia engelmannii) or fondly known as the ‘Hairy Roger’.

This is on my most wanted list. I would love to grow a hairy 10ft version of this like my regular opuntia tree.

 

On that note,

Stay Tuned For:

“Fire-pits & Giggles”

 

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