The Plague of Egypt or We Love Our Zillions of Toads

We thought we'd have a single crop of toads after the winter rains came, but new batches keep joining the herd. From tiny little dot toads to cute thumb-sized versions to the four-inchers. When I join them at 4 a.m., they're everywhere and so appreciative of the drip from the overfull rain barrel (which collects AC condensation) and the bowls of water I provide. At least some seem to be Gulf Coast toads, Bufo valliceps, or Coastal-Plain toads, Bufo nebulifer, both of which seem to have light center back stripes. Which do you think they are? 

Usually, they just hop, though sometimes they hide in my clogs and surprise me, or just sit in the water. Once, there was a larger toad seemingly trying to eat a small one, which was large enough to have gotten firmly stuck in the mouth. Normally, I try to leave nature alone for fear of naively making a poor choice, but the big toad was trying to push the little one out, so I gave it a tiny helpful pull on a wigglying foot, and ploop, off they went in their separate directions. Life before dawn is full of adventure. And groups of prowling toads are preferable to coyotes, at least that's my current position.

Live free or die

If you missed the explanation last time, many of the plants we've bred this past year or so and moved here have died from stress while waiting for our truckloads of sand to be shaped into a yard. Or we planted them and they died from salt shock. This includes most of the small, healthy little lantanas we recently bought in an end-of-spring closeout. Sad. They must have had the salt-tolerance bred out of their ancestry, so they've chosen the latter choice of New Hampshire's infamous Live Free or Die motto -- death. Or maybe their roots will revive in September and at least a few will bounce back. We're giving them water and the rest is up to them. Ya gotta be tough lantanas, or we'll rip you out of the ground. (Actually, we won't. We'll leave the roots to hold the sand in place.) Here's one of the rare ones that is not giving up.

Living Free

Here are several others that are doing OK.

Hidden within the nice blanket flower (imported from the continent, not the island native variety) is a tiny Mexican fan palm, Washingtonia robusta, we dug from a friend's yard, which then lived in a tiny pot for a year. Small, stunted, brown-tipped, but accepting the challenge of its new life. This small set of our purple trailing lantanas, Lantana montevidensis, which I thought we'd have everywhere, is doing quite well. I still want a couple of hundred of these to cascade down the slopes. Another trailing lantana, a store-bought gold one of two Ray came across and surprised me with. It and its sibling love it here and never even blinked when they tasted the salty sand. Ray's pentas, which — like the dollar lantanas — came from the markdown rack, but are holding up without a care. Wait... are these pentas or am I confusing them? Is this a green thread, Betty? I did a 7-mile nature walk on Austin's Onion Creek back in the day and the master naturalist leader referred to them as ADYFs. Another damn yellow flower.

A gift from my mom years ago and planted in Austin, we ripped this red lantana from the ground to make the move south with us. It and its two siblings were was doing great until we realized their roots had snuck out into the ground. They never forgave us from putting an end to that, and pouted for the next two years. This one seems to have made it while its two sisters found the salt to be the final insult.  This Oyster plant looked gorgeous all winter and then suddenly began losing leaves and almost died when spring came. As soon as it felt the sand around its roots, it was reborn and is delighted with its new life. We could use more of this keeper. Ray read a gardening column in the Sunday newspaper and was reminded of this plant he likes, a sweet potato vine. Beware a man with a credit card. This is one of two and was taken a couple of weeks ago, so now they've doubled in size. One has grown considerably toward the wind, which occasionally likes to flip it over like a bad comb-over. The most noticeable of all island natives, the silverleaf sunflower,  Helianthus argophyllus. They grow to 7' tall and get close to that in width. This one is now about 3' tall, which is close to as large as I let ours get. I remove their lower limbs, which makes them more tree-like, then shorten them into an oddly shaped bush. I want their sand-stabilizing roots, but don't like their encroachment style.

Why Kill Expensive Trees?

We had planned on purchasing three tall, expensive palm trees to give our front yard a mature look, but if past behavior predicts future behavior, we feared we'd possibly be risking their lives to the dreaded salt-death. It's heartbreaking to watch free seedlings die, but killing store-bought trees that cost muchos dineros and involve additional delivery and planting charges brings on emotions beyond sadness. 

Instead, we decided to take advantage of a mid-summer palm inventory-reduction we wandered into, and brought home a half-dozen young Mediterranean palms marked down from between $100-220 to $10. What fun we had planting the first three by the light of the full moon before dawn. It was noticeably more fun than planting the other three after work when the Death Star was giving its final pre-setting blast. 

See them looking like three little asterisks on the far right of this photo (taken from the third level looking toward the street). To the left of the palms are several yuccas and thornless cactus. The other two groupings mid-picture and towards the left are Washington robusta palms. See the row of little circles above the curve of the dry creek bed in the front-left quadrant? It's a ribbon of Agave americanas, aka century plants, of varying sizes, most of which were rescued from their mother's stalk, prematurely cut while the pups were still underdeveloped and rootless, carelessly thrown to the curb. The second such ribbon is to the right of the driveway. Ribbons are helping take care of the 200+ plants I could never get rid of after saving them. Please don't let them all bloom the same year or you'll be able to see them from the moon.

Hey Jude, Hey Sister Soul Sister, Hey-Ho

After each planting session, we add a layer of hay around each plant and its surrounding slope to protect its sand from the dreaded erosion brought about by the rain gods, Zeus or Jupiter or whomever is reported to be in charge. Or maybe it's the goddess of sand, Psamathe, who might be watching over it.

See the goldish hay, only partially covering the yard so far. This photo shows the other three Mediterranean palms on the far, with cactus on their right, and more Washington palms. Native volunteers are bottom center.

We've done other planting alongside the east side of the house, but they're to small to be seen from the third level.


The last two photos of the day.

The house p.m. shadow

The house a.m. shadow