zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
My sentiments exactly!
I am tired of the dry, dusty air and weather we have endured this year.
Here in the ESP we have continuously been boiling pans of water and pushing our humidifier to its limit. We are into the tail-end of November for crying out loud, and my loquats look like they did mid summer! The ground is still so dry, and I am officially tired of bright sunny days. (Apologies to the folks in the northern territories!)
"Clouds, I demand clouds, lots of them...and they will be dark
and full of rain, or my name is not Gaius Iulius Caesar.
This is my will".
The sunny days have been good for satumthing though...
This satsuma tree is still very young, 4 years, and about 5ft tall.
One of the distinguishing features of the satsuma is the distinctive thin, leathery skin dotted with large and prominent oil glands.
Yes, the one and only fruit my satsuma orange tree managed to squeeze out. Last year we had four of these orange chaps on this tree, but all of them had as much moisture in them as my soil does right now. They were woody, juice-less, dry, and it's fruit flavor finished on a distinctively "un-sweet" note...disgusting.
I anticipated the same fate this year for my rogue, lone orange. I picked it today and ceremoniously place it on a sacrificial moss stone. We all anxiously gathered around it expecting the worse. Like last years offering, it looked amazing, super bright orange and flawless. I glanced at everybody one by one with the mad expression "Chairman Kaga " on Iron Chief usually reserves to highlight the shows "theme ingredient".
"Allez Cuisine!" (begin cooking) in French. so far so good!
(So that is what that means!)
When I peeled a section of it I noticed that the flesh on the segments was soft...could it be?
There was a silence in the group.
I peeled away a segment and squeezed it, yes definitely some form of moisture / liquid in there...could it be?
"Citrus analysis Spock"? ...... "The segment does appear to have a high concentration of moisture captain".
I handed the segment to my wife - what? Did you think I was going to be the sampler after last years abominations? ... Oh no, not this time.
All eyes looked on as she tentatively bit into it. She slowly started nodding, a smile crossed here face, "It is good, it is really good"!
At this point, there was a collective sigh and we all started cheering, the scene began to resemble an end scene from a Walton's Mountain episode!
"Look Ma, ESP has finally produced an edible satsuma!"
"HaHa, well that he has John Boy, but it is going to be a rather small
pot of marmalade"
Haaaaaa Haaaaaaa Haaaaaaaa ... Aww Ma!!!!
Damned Waltons!
"IT IS YOUR FERTILE VIRGINIA SOIL!"
Anyway, we all enjoyed it, and I look forward to the sapling maturing into a tree, perhaps if I get lucky, like this one, amazing. Is that sand?
Staying on citrus for one moment...is anyone else having a cucumber beetle rampage going on in their yards right now. I have so many, mostly centered around my two citrus trees and my plethora of amaranth plants. I shook the Mexican Lime tree and a cloud of them took to the air. I tried to get a shot of these to show you the biblical extent of this infestation, without much luck.
Look at them all! Even in their large numbers I haven't really seen too much plant damage. Here is another one on a Miscanthus seed head. I am hoping that a freeze will take care of them. If we ever get a freeze.
Every time I have walked by my terracotta and asparagus fern ampitheater recently, I have heard tiny little voices... little sounds like "one, two, check".
Imagine my surprise when I went out later tonight only to find a full on concert beginning in my back yard! I leaned down and quietly asked the performers who they were, (for fear of blowing over their enormous tiny amp array), they squeaked back in irritated tiny voices:
"The Ferns", (like I should already know)!
I asked them to try to avoid excessive foot traffic by my recently planted artemesia, as there was rather a large crowd gathering for the gig! They squeaked back, "hey Mr square, this is rock and roll man, chill Winston"!
I walked away feeling quite old.
The day after the concert I noticed this sad canna lily scene. I can only assume that this was the work of a rogue cigarette flicked into the plant, after the show... so annoying! I went back to the ampitheater to complain, but everyone was gone, and the equipment was all disassembled. All that remained of the shindig was a few tiny beer cans scattered aound the asparagus ferns. That is the last time I will ever let an inch high, pretentious rock star, push me into holding a gig back there, it simply is not worth it.
I have to post one more shot of this amazing swallowtail butterfly and a close up of a couple of it's eggs. The "eye" eggs make this mexican lime leaf look very comical.
All of my succulents in my small circular bed are now taking on a hues of various degrees of purple as the winter approaches. I have made a decision that my middle "moonscape" bed will be filled with a diversity of these next year, rather than lavender.
The leaves and blooms on my donkey ears have also turned a crimson blush, I hope this will bloom before a hard frost hits it.
Here is the future succulent bed.
I need to start to learn the names of all of these plants as I am adopting them more and more. I love the miniature scale and form that this genre of plants afford, there is always something unexpected going on. The plants are quick to mutate into color changes, flowers, and unexpected growth forms / reproductive habits. I am thinking lava rocks, succulents, undulating terrain and a tumbled glass mulch top dressing.
My lavender plants are doing well in containers for the
time being, and it is here they will remain for the near future.
Exploding papyrus heads set against a dusk wintry sky...Brrr.
Rootbeer plant (Piper auritum)
While my rootbeer plants flower every year without fail, it seems they have trouble producing fruit in our climate. The flower stalk is a plain white stem, 4 - 6 inches long, that grows upright above the leaves. This is covered with tiny, tiny little flowers that are difficult to see. ( I did notice a lot of people at the concert were wearing them in their lapels) After the flowers are fertilized, the stem drops down and round fruits form, looking something like grapes on a stick. I've never seen any fruits on plants in Austin, has anyone else?. Perhaps the flowers are not getting fertilized.
In favorable climates the flowers are followed by a single-seeded fruit, a drupe. The seeds are dispersed by frugivorous (fruit-eating) bats.
"See you next time"!
"Happy Thanksgiving"
Stay tuned for:
"Snakes and Ladders"
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I got to try the first oranges off my new tree today as well. Last winter I got Pong Koa mandarin and today I gave in and tried one. Not too bad. Not awesome, but I suspect that's due more to my inconsistent watering habit as the fruits were ripening more than anything else. Did you water your orange tree more this year than last, when the fruit was awful?
Last year in Austin we witnessed a bumper year of rain, the most I have ever seen...I did not have to water once...unheard of in the lone star state. I think the dry conditions this year combined with the excess of sunny days was just right for my satsuma. The lone fruit was amazing, sweet and juicy! we all had a slice or two! It was better than any we have bought. I think they thrive on dry soil, sunny, and really hot weather.
Good to hear from you again.
How big is your Pong Koa? and how old?
Regards,
ESP.
Edited at 2008-11-29 01:48 am (UTC)
Anyway, my Pong Koa isn't that big-- maybe 4 feet? I got it when The Natural Gardener got their huge shipment of citrus last winter. I've had it a year, and have almost managed to kill it several times this winter. It's not lookin' so hot. Methinks I need to use Annie's method & make some insulated covers for all my citrus & just leave it outside. So far only the Meyer Lemon is still happy with me. The lime & mandarin both look completely demoralized, with mostly-missing leaves and some dead limbs from where I put too many sheets over them. Sigh. How do you protect your citrus in the winter, & how cold does it get when you cover it? Under 40F? Under 35?
I have both my Mex. lime tree and my satsuma planted in the ground, and a Meyer Lemon potted. I don't cover either one of my in-ground trees, in fact it is my policy not to cover anything in my yard. It is just too much hassle for me, if you cant stand the err..cold? get out of the refrigerator? - that kind of thing. I aways mulch deeply in the fall, it really seems to help. I also think the trees, especially the lime is large enough now that it can make it through our cold snaps. I have a little defoliation on my lime tree but none on my satsuma which I believe is a little hardier. I think it is tougher on citrus if they are containered in the cold spells, are yours containered? I do move my potted Meyer up to my porch in the winter, but still no covers.
Good to hear from you again.
Regards,
ESP.
Regards,
Dawn
http://suburbanwildlifegarden.blogspot.c
The tiny rock-stars were so pretentious and obnoxious in the ampitheater, I felt like stomping on them. If "The Ferns" ever start to set up their light and amp array in your yard, destroy their equipment before they destroy your yard! (so ridiculous).
The swallowtail butterfly pictures are the best ones I managed to get all this year. She really was a star and the light was perfect.
I have high hopes for my new succulent bed. I will begin adding coarse soil and plants after the last frost, next year. I have been experimenting with a lot of containered succulent varieties so I now have a good idea of the growth habits of quite a few of them. This should help in the planning stages of the bed. I am going to feature a couple of these containers in my next post.
Thank you, my little helpers are very cute "most" of the time!
Regards,
ESP
Thank you for commenting.
I've been contemplating fruit trees down here...Since the old Ash died, I do have space, but will have to wait a while for the stump to start to break down.
I am sure the Lilliputians would have loved to tie me down, to force their music on me!
I have been amazed at how much wildlife fruit / citrus trees attract...amazing. So yes, keep contemplating them as an option. I am curious, what happened to your old ash tree?
Where abouts are you? and do you have a blog?
My regards,
ESP.
The cucumber beetles are here, too - a few weeks ago on his radio show, John Dromgoole said something about the huge numbers of these beetles this year. I don't see them eating leaves - they're usually rolling ecstatically in the pollen.
I've never seen a fruit on a rootbeer plant either - the sites that mention fruit also call Piper auritum an evergreen shrub - but it acts like a herbaceous perennial in my garden.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
I need to start listening to John's radio show. I always seem to miss it. When does it air again?
I have never seen so many beetles, when I shook the amaranth a cloud of them took off and a bunch landed on me.
I am happy you got a mexican lime. Mine will be shortly turning into a few sticks again when we get a good freeze. It always bounces back extremely fast though. It is always a relief when I see the first new growth buds in the spring..."it lives!"
We are definitely not warm enough here for the Piper to be evergreen, no matter how much mulch is laid down. Do you think the fruit sets late in the year? I wonder what fertilizes the flower? because I have loads of those.
Regards,
ESP.