This, That, and Various Survivors

Lookit this little guy!

Click on the images for larger, clearer view.

There’s a hibiscus that should not be with us. The mother plant spent several years living on the shaded west-facing deck, where it would occasionally put out a kind of peach-colored blossom but by and large just sat around looking sickly. I thought it was some sort of hybrid of a pink hibiscus. Last fall, it was attacked by a web-spinning bug that encased the tips of its limbs in nests for its offspring. Even though I cleaned and cut them off, the plant never recovered.

After planning to put it out of its misery, I relented. Transplanted it into a larger pot and dollied it around to the front patio, where it suffered through the winter — survived February’s hard frost by dint of being rolled into the living room, where it looked even more miserable than it had looked on the west deck. Carted back outside when the weather warmed, it hunkered in its pot, stunned.

I really thought it was going to die, and kept thinking, “Gotta throw that thing out in the alley!” It was saved, though, by the human’s innate laziness.

Weeks passed. The bug-eaten tips slowly, gradually, glacially emitted a few sprigs of post-apocalyptic-looking new growth. Didn’t look very promising, but I was still too lazy to drag the thing out to the alley.

But lo! As temps approached 100, the plant approached viability! Some actual leaves appeared, and yesterday out popped this scarlet red blossom!

Who’d have thunk it? Apparently hibiscus produce faded blossoms when they don’t have enough light. Why this flower has a hole in one petal, I have no idea…the place is overrrun by slugs at night — one of them probably snacked on the bud.

Speaking of survivors, we have this accursed thing:

That is the undead remnant of the devil-pod tree from Hell, allegedly killed in December of 2011. That was 18 months ago! The thing spawns dozens of zombie offspring, each one craving to grow a hundred feet high, preferably out of the footing of a block wall or the foundation of a house.

This little gem is a good thirty feet from the Undead Stump, where it arrived by tunneling under a concrete patio and coming up behind a set of block-and-board shelves. Another sprout is all the way on the other side of the swimming pool. Round-up, which I’ve been advised to use on the damn thing, seems to fertilize it, not kill it.

Talked to a couple of arborists. One said to just keep on spraying every sprig with Round-up. Another will come by later this week to see about grinding the stump out, though probably it’s too late for that. And a third recommended drilling holes in it and filling them with an herbicide. Lovely.

The other day I found a tiny praying mantis nymph clinging to a wall in the house. Glorioski!

Eventually I managed to catch her without harming her and place her in the plants outside. How cool can this be? This morning I found her prancing around in the parsley. 😀 Long may she feast on mosquitoes!

This weekend M’hijito and I went from scorning Mother’s Day as a grossly commercialized Hallmark Holiday to indulging in a Mother’s Day frenzy. Saturday he came over here and prepared astonishing pizzas and glorious globe artichokes, on which we gorged until we were stuporous.

The sauce is mostly garlic — like a half-dozen cloves or more, chopped — with Italian canned tomatoes. Awesome! This tiny bit leftover from the pizza later got used to top a grilled steak and later still (this evening), enhanced with a dollop of red wine, made an incredible spaghetti sauce. With shrimp.

Sunday we went to a Mother’s Day brunch at the home of his friends’ mother, replete with galloping grandchildren and the most elaborate organic aquaculture arrangement you ever saw. So that was a lot of fun.

Altogether, fairly mellow.

In other precincts…

Wild about Finance hosts the Carnival for Young Adults  and kindly included Funny’s squib about increasing property values and gentrification by young single urban adults in these parts. Neil Frankle hosts the Carnival of Personal Finance at Wealth Pilgrim, and he included the FaM post on the decision to drive the Dog Chariot until it dissolves into the pavement.