I'm very excited about this new topic, as I love tending plants.
My parents had a Japanese garden and when I grew up and bought a home, I wanted to start a garden of my own. Theirs was very expensive, and installed by a brilliant landscaper called Nanki Ishiama. I didn't have that kind of money, but I had lots of access to books on gardening, so I spent a while just reading and planning before I got to serious design and planting.
I figured I could afford a non-formal cottage garden with mostly blooming perennials and annuals. Most of what I have I started as seed or was given as gifts and divisions from other gardeners, so it has been easy on my finances.
The most valuable thing I have learned is to plan, and to think of the whole garden area whenever I plant something. The garden is like another room of my house, and each new plant is like a piece of art to hang on the walls. I have to place it so it compliments the rest of the space as well as possible.
I've made as many mistakes as I've had successes, but it has all been worth it. Taking care of living things is a joy, because everything changes all the time. Even in the dead of winter (as it is here, now), I see things going on out there. Plants are pushing up through the cold ground. Leaf buds are fattening as the days get longer. Some people think the garden dies in winter, but we gardeners know a happy secret: life goes on...
...as do I when I get talking about plants. Anyway, I have a pretty good botanical library here, so if you have any questions about plants, ask and I'll try to help. Maybe we can form a network of helpful gardening friends.
I have never considered myself much of a gardener, but since Margot and I built our house about 5 years ago that seems to have changed. We are now in the final stages of building our garden. It has been a slow process and we have changed our minds about things as we went but we feel that has been for the good.
In our front garden we have a small area of lawn (well, grass really, given the current drought it is a bit ratty :D). there is a 600 mm retaining wall behind which we have a row of standard roses and Italian lavender. The roses have all been selected to be fragrent as well as nice to look at, can't see the point of these modern scentless roses! Between the lawn and he driveway there is an area mostly planted with pigface, a succulent with very bright flowers, one that flowers in spring on in summer and another that flowers in winter. In the middle of this area there is a "silver princess" which is a small Western Australian flowering gum that has enormous bright red flowers in spring and summer. There is a small bed next to the road with a "leucoxylin dwarf" (which is another small flowering eucalypt) and some dwarf agapanthus. There is two more leucoxylins in the front garden one at each side and along one boundary at the front there are "dutch blue giant" agapanthus which have very dark blue flowers held on stems that are usually over 180 cm (6') tall.
In the back garden we have a few more leucoxylins as they will provide open shade when they are grown - they usually grow 4 to 6 m in height at about 10 years of age with an open canopy - plus this is a species that does not go for drains or damage concrete pathways, building slabs and the like as well as being highly bird attracting. Generally our back yard is planted with Australian native plants, particularly grevileas, calistamons and correas, but also with a smattering of other things. We have just decided to kill an area of grass out the back and put mulch over it and plant out with some ground cover forms of grevileas and so on as well as some shrub forms. The pond is about 2.5 x 3.5 m and 0.5 m deep in the middle and with a shallow rock lined "beach" end. The pond is planted mostly with Melbourne indigenous water plants although we have put in some water irises (just love them blue Flowers!).
We have found that our plant choices so far have proven to be excellent from the POV of attracting birds to the garden and we keep spying new species all the time. We are not "bird watchers" but it great to have them in the garden. I particularly like the spotted pardelotes which are tiny little birds and they flit in and out of the garden and eat the scale growing on some trees behind our back fence, chattering away, plus they love the bird bath. Great fun. We have three species if frogs, southern brown tree frogs, eastern banjo frogs and striped marsh frogs. the sounds off these guys calling on a warm summer night is just bliss. Also we have a great selection of lizards and some St Andrews cross spiders, which are simply beautiful - even Margot who is scared to death of spiders generally loves these pretty little guys.
I am currently working on finishing the landscaping around the pond area and will be planting a number of frog friendly plant around the edges to complement the reeds etc that are growing in the pond around the edge. We are planning where to put some seating - probably just simple slab benches - so that we can just sit an stare at the pond and watch the goings on.
We are trying to build a little bit of nature around our house and so far Margot and I are very happy with how its going. We use a simple method when selecting plants - we get advice from the nursery at first but then we "suck it and see". Plants that die don't get tried again, those that thrive we get more of, or similar ones. We nearly always have something in flower and there is always something going on. the garden is a great place for any toadfish to sit and think, or to just sit.
Sibling Bluenose
I'm jealous, Siblings! I'm in an apartment at the moment, so I'm restricted to indoor jungle and a few 'porch monkeys' in the summer.
I'll be a big Garden Head when I get some landspace... it's too arid and short-of-season here to get me interested in even a community plot.
Well Aggie, as Bluenose says, it takes a long time to plan and get it started, so you might as well dream now. That's a very important part of garden building.
Blue, your garden sounds wonderful. We've been considering a water feature, too. The only problem is that we get major mosquito action around here. How did you do your pond?
I'll list our plants when I have time (gotta run, now). I keep a garden map so I can remember where everything is. Do you do that?
The BluenoseTM method of pond construction ;) and working on the principle that a picture is worth a thousand words:
First dig your hole (I got this done when we had some dirt moved in, leveled out etc right back in the beginning of making the garden. Much easier to move 3.5 m3 of heavy clay mechanically than trying to dig it by hand!)
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m320/BluenoseCod/Pond/Image1.jpg)
Then I lined the hole with 50 mm (2") of washed river sand
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m320/BluenoseCod/Pond/Image2.jpg)
I then lined that with geo-textile fabric to provide additional protection to the pond liner. I actually used drainage fabric rather than specialised pond underlay, because it is the same thing and it is way cheaper.
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m320/BluenoseCod/Pond/Image5.jpg)
Then I laid out the pond liner (got some help from the neighbours for this). I used a 0.5 mm PVC liner. If you can afford it a butyl rubber liner is the best possible choice, but the good quality PVC ones are still pretty good.
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m320/BluenoseCod/Pond/Image6.jpg)
Then add water - that's me in the background
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m320/BluenoseCod/Pond/Image7.jpg)
The next morning, add ducks. This family of ducks wondered in through the side gate as I was getting ready to place the rocks around the pond edge. They were trying to get through to the dam behind our place. Eventually had to chase them out.
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m320/BluenoseCod/Pond/Image8.jpg)
I then placed some rocks around the edge
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m320/BluenoseCod/Pond/Image9.jpg)
One end of the pond is shallow and I have lined it with rounded flat river stones, there will be a beach of these when all is finished.
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m320/BluenoseCod/Pond/Image14.jpg)
Another view of the shallow water
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m320/BluenoseCod/Pond/Image15.jpg)
An overall view of the pond just after construction
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m320/BluenoseCod/Pond/Image13.jpg)
The pond as it is today
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m320/BluenoseCod/Pond/DSCN0367.jpg)
The area behind the pond in the corner will be built up with soil and rocks and then planted including a small tree - a snow gum. I will be planting suitable frog friendly plants around the edges of the pond and the area will be mulched with "bush mulch" which is basically eucalypt leaves and twigs etc to give it a natural sort of look as well as helping out with water retention and so on.
As for mosquito protection, within a couple of weeks of adding water the pond was literally teaming with mossies. I put in two small Australian native fish - Murray rainbowfish - and that has been the end of the problem. We have not seen a single mosquito wriggler in the pond since a few days after we added the fish. I recommend you choose a suitable small locally native fish and that will be the end of the problem. In North America NANFA (http://www.nanfa.org/) (the North America Native Fish Association) should be able to advise of a suitable species. I do not like goldfish in ponds, they produce way too much waste, are not very good mosquito predators and they eat tadpoles - all not good qualities IMO. The trick is to choose a species that will not cause any problems if it escapes from your pond into any natural water course nearby.
This project has been very satisfying and I am looking forward to its completion soon!
Sibling Bluenose
:o
Holy Carp! That's absolutely gorgeous! That's exactly the kind of thing we had in mind. Very naturalistic.
My mom's Japanese garden has a pond, and the koi always eat the mosquitos there. I should have thought of that. I love koi. Every so aoften we get a winter cold enough to freeze the pond solid and she loses some koi, but mostly they just burrow into the mud and leaves at the bottom and go into slow mo.
It's been pretty warn the last few days, plus we've had late afternoon showers/thunderstorms a couple of times. The frogs have gone berserk. Mainly striped marsh frogs (http://frogs.org.au/frogs/species/Limnodynastes/peroni/), their calls have been very loud and continuous right through the night. On Saturday morning we found 7 or 8 egg masses spread throughout the pond and it is currently just teeming with tadpoles. there were a few more this morning as well.
Work is progressing on completing the landscaping around the pond. I have to take it easy because I have got tendonitis in my right Achilles tendon, plus some sort of spur at the attachment point (yes, ouch!), which means I have to be very careful about how I use my foot - makes working in the garden a slow process. Still, It's not a race so I just keep on pluggin away. Its all coming together now, so I'm keen to finish, but I have to make myself take it steady. I'll post some more photos when the work is done (acknowledging that a garden is never "done"), hopefully in a few weeks.
Although I still do not really consider myself to be a "gardener", the great thing about it is that you can do as much or as little as you like. Even a few pot plants can make an indoor garden, with a bit of imagination!
Sibling Bluenose
Water is the best thing in any garden. There is nothing that will attract wildlife like a pond or even a small water feature. My garden is designed to be practical for use all year round whilst encouraging lots of wildlife. Walls etc have been built to have gaps and spaces for the creepy crawlies etc.
My pond is here http://www.freewebs.com/anthonywad_2000/photos.htm (http://www.freewebs.com/anthonywad_2000/photos.htm)
it is much smaller than bluenoses pond (my garden is smaller than bluenoses pond! :o)
I built one in my parents garden that is of identical construction to the Bluenose method (that is GoatdesignTM and I will be expecting the royalty cheque VERY soon). It is now about 8 years old and well established. I have counted over 30 frogs at any one time in it (which probably means there are hundreds). If I can get a photo I will post it up.
I will post a picture of the whole Goat garden later as I think it is a rather lovely piece of design for a garden that is only 4m x 4m (and will be even better when I complete my outside mosaic this summer).
Garden design is just great fun.
It is still February.
My peach trees are blooming. This is too early for peach trees to bloom. Ah, well, it just means I get to screw up thinning them much earlier this year!!
Oh! If only I could see those peach blossoms!
I spotted the first crocus the other day in the front yard. It was small and yellow, but it's tiny shock of color seemed to rule the grey landscape. The Sunday came and buried it under a half a foot of snow.
...but I know it's in there somewhere!
If I had a working camera...then I would need a properly working computer, and then I could post pics!
Oh, well...maybe next year?
We've had some mild days here this week and I've been clearing out my perennial beds. My back hurts, but I feel good about pulling out the old dead stalks and stuff. Only problem is: it looks neater, but punier! I did see the nubby heads of some old friends out there, and said hello to some kindly earthworms.
In the front yard I have large purple croci and pale yellow daffodils blooming like mad along the south-facing stone foundation of the house. What a spirit lifter it is to see these beauties fluttering in the breeze! It's like a balm on my heart.
My parents are planning to put in a water feature eventually. They want to use it mostly as a cooling device, given that it can reach upwards of 105*F around here.
My garden has been through the wringer this year. We had 19 days of hard frost, which these plants aren't well equipped to deal with, mostly. That has NEVER happened before in the 10 years I've lived here. I'm waiting to see if my butterfly bush comes back. Other then that, my plants seem to be doing well. I have posted pics in the pictures section from my yard, too. WE're well on our way to summer here, so most of the blooming (like for my apricot) is already done.
Hey, Garden Heads!
The daffodils are starting to fade around here. I've tried a couple of methods to keep the ripening leaves from flopping over onto the other plants, such as tying each clum together (too tedious!) folding and rubber-banding (killed my hands!) and this year: just tying huge clumps together. Cutting them down is NOT recommended, as the leaves need to continue to photosynthesize after the flowers are done, in order to feed the bulbs and make flowers for next year. What do you do?
My grandmother used to sort of braid them...it kept them together!
I've heard of that method. Not sure if I'm coordinated enough to pull it off!
I got some clearanced Canna at Wally-world this weekend. I had Canna a few years back, the typical red-blossoming ones, but these are 'Wyoming'- with the bronze leaves and golden flowers. I had to pick through the bin to find the only two packs that looked like they had life in them, but I'm hopeful!
Those are pretty. I love the leaf color, and they're generally a semi-dwarf variety, at least the ones grown here. Canna love it so much here that the standard varieties get over 7 feet tall at times.
Wyomings, and the bicolors tend to not get as tall. We have canna that naturalized years ago, behind the barn. Some of them get above the roofline at the back, and it's a shock to see red flowers peeping over the barn roof. Almost as strange as the poinsettias at my grandma's in Aransas Pass. They were in the vacant lot behind the carriage house (OK, it wasn't a carriage house anymore, but--it had been for years) where the horses used to graze. They got over 10 feet tall, and during the late 50's and early 60's airline pilots flying into Corpus Christi would fly their passenegers over and point them out when the bracts were full red. Mom said that was a full acre of poins, at that time. (I was a little kid. I just remember tree-like things with stalks bigger than my legs or arms.)
Some bulb flowers seem to do well here. The drainage ditches and lots of side yards are filled with "naked ladies". http://mrkurtzsneighborhood.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/amaryllisweb2_copy.jpg
And in February, there are always huge mounds of paperwhite narcissus everywhere. I've not tried tulips or daffodils yet, but then i'm not able to garden much.
I want to grow all kinds of allium.
http://www.youcanlearnseries.com/Landscape/Images/Allium-50Pct.jpg
And especially the edible kind. (I just refused to pay $1.39 a pound for onions at the store. I'll buy 12 ounces of frozen pre-chopped before I will pay that for onions that are half bad like the last ones I bought.)
Good thing about growing onions is that when you plant, then have to thin, the 'thinnings' are good green onions!
YYYYAAAARRRRR...I be fed up o me crew dyin from Scurvy and Fishe Heade Stewe overdose so I've come ere fer some advice from ye experts.
I be leavin off growin coconuts and breadfruit til next year but what be the best way to get yer seeds to germinate.
I think I got a bad batch, I am having trouble with me Courgettes and Squash. As for Onions and carrots and I can't get em to grow at all. Any ideas? I put some seeds in the compost bin and that seemed to work...nice and warm in there.
Are you keeping them nice and moist? Germinating seeds don't like to dry out.
Also, pay close attention to the seed depth when you plant. Some seeds like to be a half-inch below the surface, and some like to be ON the surface.
Another thing is temperature. Some seeds, like carrots like to be sown when it's still chilly outside. the compost heap may be too warm for them.
Here are some places to peek at:
http://www.ehow.com/how_1998_grow-carrots.html (http://www.ehow.com/how_1998_grow-carrots.html)
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/alt-ag/onions.htm (http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/alt-ag/onions.htm)
http://www.garden-centre.org/Marrow.htm (http://www.garden-centre.org/Marrow.htm)
If it's warm there, you may have more luck with summer squash.
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-24-a.html (http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-24-a.html)
Auntie Chatty- I think the Wyoming Cannas are supposed to be four feet high. Love the naked ladies. Sure wish I could have seen that poinsettia patch! Sounds fabulous!
Thanks for that. Do you need to keep seeds in an airtight container after you've opened the packet?
Some of my seeds have been lying around in the opened packets since last year.
I usually keep mine in paper bags on the back porch, so they go through the regular changes in temperature that they might in nature..
here's more info:
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/Garden/07221.html
YYYAAARRR...If I did that the squirrels would eat em!! I might try it though, thanks again. I'm going all out to grow vedge this year cos I'm sick of the stuff from the supermarkets.
I've had bean and pea seeds remain viable over a couple of years in the (hot) apartment; not sure if the lack of humidity here has helped or not (maybe being in the rum cupboard did, though).
Especially being that it's May already, you may look at picking up some starter plants from a nursery. Not necessary for the onions and carrots, but plants like tomatoes and peppers usually benefit from the jump start. Radishes and peas are worth a try for easy-to-grow, quick-to-harvest crops.
I've started some tropical seeds in a bag of soil on top of the modem, but shouldn't be necessary for veg.
Mine is a cottage garden of flowers and herbs, but I have been seriously considering veg as well, since things have become so horribly expensive at the grocery.
Last night on the news I heard that one reason for the rise in food costs is that corn is now being used as fuel and is therefore at a premium, and we use corn and corn syrup and corn starch in almost all of our food processing. Another reason is the cost of trucking things around with the fuel rates up. We can't seem to win!
I may do a small salad garden and move on to the winter veg as I get used to the care and temperament of vegetables. Aggie's right that around here it's too late to start most of them by seed, but I could get started plants. Hmm...
Who's your gardening hero? Mine's Alan Titchmarsh - great name and he's always there (on TV) when you need him.
Oh, I love Alan T.!
Mine are Cassandra Danz (who wrote "Mrs. Greenthumbs"- the book that made me get out and garden) and Henry Mitchell, who wrote a terrific gardening column in the Washington Post called "Earthman", which was later compiled into a wonderful book called "The Essential Earthman" (I think). Both of these writers are dead now. :'( But their inspiring words ring on!
We've got the proper English weather back now, after a period when the climate looked more like the South of France. This means the war with the Slugs and Snails has commenced. So far it's Slugs and Snails 5, me 2 (I'm coring at number of plants eaten v number of pots of varmints caught).
What do you do for (or rather- against) the slugs? A friend of mine used to put out jar-tops full of beer. The slugs would drink themselves to death. I don't know whether that's a humanitarian way of doing them in or not.
But they can't have any of my "Black Toad"!
I think you have eloquently pointed out the flaw in this method. One gets near the end of the bottle of beer and one thinks: Stuff the plants, I'm finishing this off!
Slugs and Snails just need to be re-trained to eat Weeds instead of valuable plants and veg. I am surprised nobody has attempted this yet.
Do you think we could fool them into thinking the weeds are beer?
Maybe we could paste little beer labels on the weeds or something. Sounds a bit labor-intensive, but after a few beers it could become rather fascinating.
My peach tree closest to the house has committed suicide. It looked like it needed water, but that wasn't it...and it's just gone down from there. The other peach trees are doing fine, but the one outside my windows is dying!!
WAH! What do you think got it? Bugs? Fungi?
Not sure. We're going to see if anyone at the Agriculture school at A&M University can tell us. The other ones seem to be great, just the one I can see without having to go out in the grass which I seem to be developing an allergy to... ::)
I think I'm developing an allergy to everything. I've got a fine red raised rash on my shoulders and chest and it's driving me nuts-er. Maybe the peach tree and I are both allergic to something.
Here are some descriptions of peach tree problems: http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/hgic2209.htm
I would say that you're a peach, but I don't want you catching anything!
well, at the same time as my rash and the peach tree...the big oak that faces the same way has some funky abrupt new growth of leaves that are all fall colored and very--'strange looking'. these are Texas Live Oaks that don't do the fall color leaf thing.
Looks like there may have been some air-borne contaminant of some sort. Inquiries are apace...
Aie.... keep us posted. That doesn't sound good.
SiblingBluenose,I love the pictures of the pond you are putting in!I imagine you are finished now? I'm putting in water features of my own and am very excited about it.
However i didn't draw up a plan so the effort is running out of control,instead of just one little pond kit (100 gallons)I've dug a "river" and purchased from a local supplier two more ponds kits in a fit of spontaneity.
I have a postage sized back yard surrounded by other houses and i wonder if maybe I've gone in over my head,but my Lilly's look fabulous next to water.
Hi Bro,
Yep the pond is more or less done, well obviously like any garden it is a continuing work in progress, but the main construction is done. I have some photos here somewhere, I'll dig them out and post them up where you can see them in as soon as I get a few moments to do it.
Good luck with your project, it sounds fantastic. I would love to see some pix, if you can post some.
Good Morning Sibling Bluenose!, I 'd be delighted to post some pics as soon as i purchase the required equipment and learn how to use them.
What kind of lilies ya got there, Bro? Any lotus?
Hello OP,
I have day yellow Day Lilly , deep orange Easter Lilly and one more variety but I've forgotten what they are since I didn't buy them.
The owner of local garden center is a childhood friend so I get a load of finished plants at the end of season for free.
The mystery Lilly's found their way into my garden last spring as I was walking home from work.
It seems a lady stopped by to buy cut Lillie's for a bouquet, since none were to be had she bought up all the plants and cut them at the base .
So 30 "stumps" instead of being composted , found a new home with me and my gardening friends.
Last year was when i got the most plants free of charge; three bleeding hearts , 15 red dianthus , 2 columbine , a 12 ft. white lilac and a peony.
There is a plant I have that looks like a sort of lotus, I'll have to post a pic of it since i forgot it name as well.
I refer to my plants as the "girls"...Lilly, Heather, Rosa Sharon, Rose ,Diana, Penny...etc..
It never fails to get a smile or a laugh. ;D
;D
Actually, I meant water lilies, but I am a huge daylily fan, as well as a huge fan of getting and sharing free plants. :woot:
I have tall orange (Hemerocallis fulva) daylilies, as well as fragrant yellow ones, big deep pink ones, short maroon colored ones with green throats, short pumpkin ones, and red ones among others. I don't know the names of most of them, as they were divivions from other gardeners. They are just starting to open now.
Whew, are my arms tired! I sheared the tall privet hedge on Monday morning and pruned another hedge of way overgrown weigelas this morning. I have to use both hands to pick up a coffee cup!
I'm still not sure which plant I like the most ,my weigelias or the deep purple lilac.I like to let both go wild, the weigelia ( the mother of them all) looks a bit tired after all the cut i've made.I think everybody ought to have one growing so i pass them out to whomever asks.
The lillac was cut and planted 4 years ago and after sprouting three kids have just begun to go for the sky,so i'm a grinch with it.
Oh, I totally agree about letting shrubs take their natural shape. I did have to shear the privet though, as it was scraping cars as they came into the driveway. That tended to put guests on edge.
I have two kinds of weigela. One is a variegated weigela with leaves that have a lighter green around the edges and pale pink flowers. I have propagated and shared that plant a few times, as it's a beauty.
The ones I pruned were the more common type, with one-tone green leaves and deep pink blossoms. I have a group of about six of them along the street side, next to my rosa rugosa hedge. I've had them at least ten years and have never pruned them. They were starting to get leggy and had fewer flowers this year, so I decided to prune them right after they were done blooming. Mostly I took out the dead stuff and some of the oldest branches, but I tried to retain the natural fountain shape. Must've taken at least six way-heaping wheelbarrows full of branches to the burn pile.
My forearms still feel like noodles.
I'm going to try and send a pic....here goes......
(http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/1240/picture001cz8.th.jpg) (http://img214.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture001cz8.jpg)
(http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/8989/picture016bq9.th.jpg) (http://img176.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture016bq9.jpg)
The top photo is my first attempt.
The lower one shows how I changed my mind a week or so later.
I have refined it once again since that shot was taken. I'll be back with the finished shot with explainations later ,Bye for now!
Awesome, BC!!! I can't wait to see more.
Are you doing a naturalistic thing? Almost looks like a streambed-to-pond thing. I like it.
Hello Opsansus!, Thanks yee kindly and YES ,that's EXACTLY! what it is !
The original " plan " was to simply divert the rainwater from both my neighbors and my own house into an aquifer of crushed stones.
Ever since the downspouts were disconnected from the grid water floods the other patios down the hill.
But I always wanting a little place by the water so I'm doing just that and recycling rainwater as well .
I'd originally hoped for a waterway of captured rain water to traverse the perimeter of the yard and have a moat that critters and beasties could use. I wanted a bridge as well , I'm hoping to find a justification for it .
The layout in the top pic' has been altered three times since it was taken three weeks ago . The original solution worked wonderfully and the mature plants looked great in their new home . But I couldn't find
a place to put my chairs and table , so the stream narrowed and was cut short , losing 50% of original capacity.
The second pic is of the Moat by garage that was a consolation but again not enough area for furniture , so I placed drain "tile" in the garage side of the moat and covered it with crushed limestone .
The idea was to cover this with red slate or more likely a sandstone slab...what ever's cheapest , the runoff from the garage would be filtered before entering the moat , fish could swim freely in rainy season but stuck in the moat the rest of the time.
However the water is presently alkaline , I can't imagine anything surviving long in there ...which is a good thing , no m' squiters but the water does look murky though the cloud settled down to the bottom of the moat .
Now , the plan is to flood the 10' x 15' membrane and have pirate regattas using RC models.
I wonder how long , if ever , it takes for acidic rain to neutralize the alkaline water?
Hmm... Bro, limestone will neutralize any acidic conditions on contact. That being said, we have championship trout out of the Bow River, and it's coming straight out of limestone (Rockies), so you'll just need to find some high-pH tolerant critters. A few good rainfalls should help flush things out, too.
It's been a damp start to the summer here in good ol Blighty. The slug battle is intensifying! I read recently that placing a grapefruit half in the garden will distract the evil critters from your veg.
I hear you, Bart. The buggers are making swiss cheese out of my variegated hosta!
BC: there are fairly inexpensive test kits available http://www.google.com/products?q=+water+alkalinity+test+kit&hl=en&um=1&sa=X&oi=froogle&ct=title that give simple instructions on how to neutralize your water chemicals.
Here's one for ponds: http://www.petblvd.com/cgi-bin/pb/TTR16611.html?mv_pc=froogle
Ths Sibling Opsanus !
You are most welcome, BC. I imagine you can find something like those at some of the better pet stores that sell koi and other pond fish.
Hi Sibs !
I have 7 koi in total now , at least i think so , I rarely see them all at one time and three are almost invisible if they remain motionless above the pea gravel in the pond.
My youngest sibling brought over the first three koi which were about 3" in length for $5 , one was floating after 3 days .
The rest cost $5 a piece , one of that lot floated after 2 days ( both floaters were primarily orange in color , I wonder if the orange colored fish disagree with the living arrangement ) .
The pond has now been moved closer to the house , has been dig to 1 meter at the deepest part of the pond to a few inches at the pebbly end and is about 2m by 5m .
Since I'm now on a tighter budget , I'm in no hurry to spend any money on the thing and am content to reuse any materials I can get for free , at the moment I'm still waiting for flagstones my brother offered me last year .
One of these years he might actually bring them over .
My neighbor ( Valiant Knight here in the forum , he doesn't pop in much ) has a case of affluenza , I think he's projecting his tastes and sensibilities upon me . He wants to see this ongoing project come to an end and finished off with all the plants , lights etc. etc. that them rich folks have in their ponds and gardens .
He is threatening to buy me more pond plants , colored gravel , lighting etc. etc.
He already gave me a watertight halogen light fixture with colored filters that clips onto my telescoping fountain , I adjusted the height and nozzle attachment so it appears that a large globe is rising from the water, the light makes the globe and pond sureface glow green (or five other colors , but I prefer green ) .
I still have to finish off the decks , I'm thinking of shorting the 8' by 10' upper deck to 5' by 10' . Before I put the deck in I used to get the reflection of sunlight cast upon my dining room ceiling , the length of decking has cut it off and I miss watching the light dance around supper time .
I'm almost finished planting around the pond , I find the lily family the easiest to have around the water's edge since they drop very little foliage or other plant bits into the water .
The water hyacinth was a great disappointment , they all disintegrated , and they cost $4.50 each ! Lilly is doing fine in there and has doubled its foliage in only a month . As soon as I figure out how to reload or reset the damn digital camera I can send some pics .
Wow, I can't wait- that sounds fantastic!!!!
My new raised "four winds" beds are looking volumptuous now and have yeilded bib lettuce, zucchini and basil, and are now ripening green pepper, tomatos, and cucumbers. I've also had some nice zinnias, four o'clocks and nicotania alata blooming in there. Very pretty!
Hey, Garden Heads in the US-
There's a plant study (http://www.usanpn.org/?q=content/participate) that needs your input! They are trying to record changes in plant habits due to climate change.
*sniff*
By being lazy and a bit wimpy to go out in the cold and supply my koi oxygen I killed them all *sniff* .
They where supposed to dormant !
But we had a thaw , the liddle guys become active and starved for oxygen because of the sheet of ice over the pond, this was in early Dec. and I am still reeling from the loss .
Aw, poor sweetie. This happens to my Mom's pond every so often. Usually they are fine down in the leaves and crud at the bottom. We think it just freezes all the way through them, sometimes.
May flights of angelfish swim them to their rest.
All you can do is start over.
:'(
I'm re-doing the pond layout for the 15th and final time ( I think ) .
The previous configuration was too deep and dangerous , with slippery slopes .I'm going to glue together the smaller pieces of PVC sheets to the butyl rubber membrane for a larger sized pond but not so deep ( it was waist deep , now i'm aiming at knee depth.
I was watching a program about the worlds treasures and the presenter was in Japan sitting next to this extraordinary koi pond .
Now i want my pond to look similar , problem is , I need another half acre of land .
At the moment the pond liner has been moved as I do the landscaping and rock moving , the rocks have me concerned for when wee ones or drunken friends visit .
I'm letting the spring rains fill up what i have dug so far in the hopes that I can see what the pond perimeter will look like before i put down the liner again .
I also hope to divide all my bulbs so plants surround the pond completely , i figure i'll be done in two more years , at the moment the interior is still sucking bank account dry .
I'm patient enough to wait for free materials to finish the exterior .
My plan is to move the rocks toward the deeper end , away from potential slips by the water edge where a table and/or chairs will be , make and arbor for the grape vine , build a mud room for the back entrance to save a bit a winter heating , and place raised planters for veg ( so the cats don't use the soil as a privy .
Anyone that wishes to physically help with the project is welcome to come on over ;D .
I would love to, but unfortunately I'm on the wrong continent and with a very limited travelling account. :(
I've done some digging in my mother's garden by my little house the past few days, I want a little water mirror but the plot I chosen is a slope with a lot of stone just beneath the surface so I need to dig up a lot more than just for the mini pond.
Mum says I'm turning in to a manic :badger: and she would know, she's exactly the same. :D
Just a question because I know nothing about fish-ponds... Will the Koi's be comfortable in a pond that's only knee deep? As I understand it shallow ponds can get really hot in summer, too hot for some fishes but I don't know about kois.
The koi will be okay in knee depth water , however if there are a lot of hungry big birds around they might end up as lunch , it isn't a problem where i am .
A problem with the water being to shallow for me is the raccoons , but I didn't have any trouble with them before when the water was originally about 1/2 meter in depth .
edit : I just got back from some landscraping , I'm hoping for a deluge to fill up what I've dug thus far , I'm planning on isolating the morning glorys to another part of the garden since they are so invasive .
One of my rhododendrens dosn't like the winter , so it's going to a more sheltered area .
I've started green beans and tomatoes from seeds my father saved , I hope they are viable after 9 years , he also saved some cilantro seeds that I plan to grow in containers .
I was given four asters which I must find a home for , but I don't know if they are still alive , I'll wait and see .
Lucky you I would love to have morning glorys growing like weed!
The plants are horrible expensive here and it's difficult to grow them from seeds with out a greenhouse...
:)
I hear that tomato seeds can last a very long time. I'll try any seeds, if they're free.
My Mom has a fish pond that's only knee deep. It's about twelve feet long and four feet wide, but in an irregular oval shape. She's had it for forty years. She ususally keeps goldfish and koi in it. They live through the winter by burying into the slime at the bottom. Every once in a while she loses the fish. Sometimes the pond freezes solid. Sometimes a racoon or waterbird gets in and has a feast. One year she fertilized the lawn and heavy rains washed the stuff into the water and killed the fish! That was sad. I don't think she'll do that again.
Rhododendrons don't like west winds, because they tend to dry out their broad leaves in winter. I have mine on the east side of my house and they're fine there. Sometimes I give them a leaf bath when the weather gets very dry in summer.
Garden log :15.5.95
I've had four varieties of rhodos , so far only the one from Finland can be left to it's own devices to get through a winter without leaf damage .
I swear i'm not going to shift that pond any more ( oh my back ) , arranging the rocks that I have is tougher than I'd thought it would be .
I have discovered the beautiful but narsty scarlet lily beetle , tough wee buggers ( pardon the pun ) , I may have a war on my hands .
I'm hesitant in squishing 'em , they being so pretty an' sech .
If it's them or the lilies, squish the blaggards! Someone has to protect the innocent. Japanese beetles are pretty too, until they defoliate my rosebushes. Grr!
This house has a heated koi pond in the front lawn. Somehow, over the (unusually bad!) winter, the heating coil opted for warming at most, and the filters stopped entirely. As each successive blizzard put unbefreakingleavable drifts across the garage doors and obscured the front porch and door, the koi were not the foremost item of concern -- even if we could have shoveled our way out to them. (The pond may have been one of the things allowed to kind of ... drift towards maintainance problems ... during the last year the previous owner had been trying to sell.)
Spring is finally here (although we're apt to get another blizzard or two yet!) and the fish are still alive and swimming about. All the neighborhood kids stop to check on them every time they pass our house, and I've been methodically assuring parents that, yes, they are still more than welcome to do so with The New People.
Smaller pump/filter is DOA. Larger one works well but the attachments to the decorative water-spewing devices were apparently damaged during the blizzards. The bottom of the main pond has some grody, mossy stuff (partly from kids tossing small sticks and rocks in ?) and the smaller waterfall pond above it is more disturbing yet, so it's temporarily disconnected.
This is something I will enjoy seeing brought back to condition, although it's going to be an expensive, time-consuming, and disgusting process. I'll be reading back info here for tips and may ask for expert help in the process. Will post pics when there is something photogenic to post.
Oh yeah -- it is my understanding that deer come to the yard every night in the fall, drinking from the koi pond. Aside from having to rake up the deer 'manouevers' that might make some nice photos as well!
(http://fc09.deviantart.com/fs13/f/2007/105/e/9/Koi_Icon_by_chill07.gif)
Koi are tough! And the grody mossy stuff can be raked out and put on the compost heap to be used on your garden. It smells a bit, though, as most manures will before they have fully ripened. But it's good fertilizer!
Quote from: pieces o nine on May 20, 2009, 05:43:24 AM
This house has a heated koi pond in the front lawn.
.....
This is something I will enjoy seeing brought back to condition, although it's going to be an expensive, time-consuming, and disgusting process. I'll be reading back info here for tips and may ask for expert help in the process. Will post pics when there is something photogenic to post.
Oh yeah -- it is my understanding that deer come to the yard every night in the fall, drinking from the koi pond. Aside from having to rake up the deer 'manouevers' that might make some nice photos as well!
Hi, Pieces!
Wow, that's so cool to have a pond like that - we have an ideal area to put a water garden/waterfall/stream/pond combination, but no money to do it with :'(. Some day, maybe. I can't wait to see pics of your pond and deer. We've had three moose in our yard since moving here eight years ago, but never managed to get pictures of them - though I see plenty of deer and moose at work. These guys were behind a camp I was inspecting.
(http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp199/ETtheExtraTerrestrial/deeryard2.jpg)
And this guy was right beside the office - about fifteen feet from the building.
(http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp199/ETtheExtraTerrestrial/Bruce.jpg)
Hi ET -- good to see you here. Nice pics of the deer! I'll see what I can get when our weather turns again.
Wow! Great photos. I love the moose. What a handsome fellow.
He looks like a young-un , I find the young ones to be relatively tame .
Deep in Algonquin Park me and me mateys managed to get close enough to pull their tails , they just ignored us and continued to forage .
They were beautiful healthy looking specimens .
Quote from: Bruder Cuzzen on May 22, 2009, 01:07:24 AM
He looks like a young-un , I find the young ones to be relatively tame .
Deep in Algonquin Park me and me mateys managed to get close enough to pull their tails , they just ignored us and continued to forage .
They were beautiful healthy looking specimens .
We figured he was a second-season adult. Getting close to them is potentially non-lethal if they're not with a calf (unusual for a male, but I've seen it) and it's not in the rutting season, but I'd generally recommend against it regardless. They are mucho plenty lots of big, and can get twelve kinds of nasty if they want to. On the other hand, they literally can't see past their own noses, and they aren't particularly clever. I've been within 50 feet or less of adult moose many times, and I've been nervous every time. They can run WAY faster than a people, especially when the people is me.
Quote from: Earthling on May 23, 2009, 05:03:04 AM
We figured he was a second-season adult. Getting close to them is potentially non-lethal if they're not with a calf (unusual for a male, but I've seen it) and it's not in the rutting season, but I'd generally recommend against it regardless. They are mucho plenty lots of big, and can get twelve kinds of nasty if they want to. On the other hand, they literally can't see past their own noses, and they aren't particularly clever. I've been within 50 feet or less of adult moose many times, and I've been nervous every time. They can run WAY faster than a people, especially when the people is me.
I let the other canoes get between me and them , we came across 3 females and a calf , I thought that was unusual , is it ?
Not too unusual, moose will do the auntie thing on occasion. It is unusual to see the male with the calves, though. if you do come across a cow with a calf, be sure not to get between them, the mother can get very protective no matter your intentions. I think I have a photo in here somewhere of a group, two mothers with two calves - I'll try to remember to dig it up tonight. I have to go to the dump right now though....
We spotted 7 of the big beasties that trip and a number of critters .
All the moose were spotted somewhere along the trip to the outfitter's or on the portage to our campgrounds .
We figured they where accustomed to humans , the route we were on was the only way to get into and out off that section of the park .
It took a few hours to paddle the lake and meandering river to reach our campground .
At one portage point were encountered two groups and a mass of canoes , on the beach , landing docks , by the rocks , leaning on logs , packs gear and paddles everywhere .
A large male , no , a huge male was foraging in the water perhaps 30ft ahead of us .
Some were taking photos , meanwhile two more groups had come in , the moose was there a long time , none of us (20+ had piled in ) wanted to be stuck in the river system at nightfall .
So everyone either had snacks or prepared their canoes to push off when Bullwinkle left .
I think he liked it there , he hadn't moved much and I think he got even closer .
The first group were there for almost a very long hour and decided to go for it and all watched as our intrepid heroines passed within meters of the behemoth .
Thus inspired , we all ran the gauntlet , it was a fun trip , per usual for me .
Cool adventure, Bruder, but fairly risky. Don't trust 'em, they don't think like we do. On the other hand, I would probably have done the exact same thing, only more nervously. :scared:
I don't know if the American variation of mooses are more aggressive than the north European but ours are rather gentle minded, except for females with calfs that is but that goes for any animal wild or domesticated, they don't particularly like strangers close to the offspring. Bulls during rutting season can be aggressive too but they tend to charge at bigger objects than humans. It has happen that people at mountain bikes has been attacked in forests, I guess they move in a more moose like way...
Are they as tasty as the ones we have here? ;D
Actual unprovoked attacks are quite rare in N. America, I think. Elk are more dangerous, mostly because they get quite used to people and wander around town in national parks (Banff, for example). Tourists (particularly Japanese, for some reason) tend to think that not afraid of people means tame and get WAY too close. Don't put your kid on a wild animal for a photo op, m'kay?
:offtopic:
If I had a nickel for every incredibly stupid thing I've seen a tourist do out in my woods, including to/with animals, to/with plants and to/with inanimate objects, I'd probably be richer that anyone you've ever met. Every year they put their snowmobiles through the ice on the lakes, crash their ATV's into each other, get bitten/mauled by every species of critter that slithers, crawls, swims, walks or flies, fall off places they have no business being, eat things they shouldn't even touch, drop trees on their cars, houses and family members... they drive me to distraction. They think because there are no traffic lights, it must be the wild wild west, and anything goes (except common sense). Pardon my raving, but it's spring, and I just had my first day in the field this year, and discovered group one of my annual raft of new violations (coupla biggies already), so out-of-staters are on my "stuff that I'd scrape off my shoe outdoors if I stepped in it" list.
Tourists? LOL, that's the locals here... :mrgreen:
and I don't consider myself one of the locals - you can take the boy outta BC but that don't make him an Albertan
Hmmm... fieldwork + outdoors + inspecting camps... you part of the enviro-industry siblinghood we seem to be developing around here (alternatively, sounds park-rangerish)? I'm off to the field for liability assessments tomorrow.
<hangs head>
No, I'm a gummint employee. I enforce Maine Land Use laws. With limited effectiveness, I'm afraid.
gummint is still part of the whole shebang - Swato's gummint too. And I'll take land use as close enough. ;)
no shame in it either, ultimately my pay comes from Big Dirty Oil - even though we are helping 'em keep it clean out there, it's still keeping production going. :P
Halp! The garden is devouring my garden furniture! This photo was taken a month ago. It's even more of a tangle, now.
I'm scheduling an air tanker drop of Roundup for 9PM CST. I think about 10,000 gallons should do it. :mrgreen:
You're not talking about a doomsday device again are you, Dr. Strangelove?
Nah, I'm still working on that. I'm talking about one of those firefighting planes.
Lovely garden! (albeit perhaps a tad on the vigorous side ;) )
Seriously, though, all those high plants and flowers are probably a mini-haven for a lot of insects and butterflies, most of whom find it very hard to live in well-manicured gardens with 32mm tall grass and tons of chemicals. At our summer house, we deliberately keep certain areas of our land with tall grass and wild flowers, together with some grown-up trees and some dead tree trunks, and it does seem to make a difference -we have quite a few butterflies, bumblebees, ladybugs and other nice critters buzzing around the house.
You seem to grow quite a bit of herbs in your garden, Opsa. Care to tell us a bit about what you grow? Spices, medicinal herbs, flowers? Do you try to grow combinations of plants that keep pests away? Our combination of Datura and chillies have worked wonders for keeping mites out of our windowsills and plants! :)
I grow a variety of things, but I do have a love for medicinal herbs. In that photo you can see my 'four winds' beds. To the front right, the blue-ish stuff is artemesia ludoviciana, or white sage, a nice medicinal herb used by some native American medicine folk. I also have sacred tobacco, another aboriginal favorite, which has done a fair job of keeping the insect pests at bay. Other plants in these beds include yellow and red cherry tomatoes, dill, cosmos, nicotiana alata, heritage raspberry, and lettuces. I just put in some beets and broccoli.
We like to keep a hedgerow around our yard as a habitat for local wildlife. Of course, our gardens get so wild at this time of year that it's pretty much a hedgerow, too.