This guy showed up in our garden pond this a.m.
visiter to our winter bare pond
another shot
here is a summer shot of the pond. Course it looks nothing like that this time of the year in IL.!!
beautiful pond-it really makes me wish for spring!!
Do you store your non-hardy plants in water indoors? I store mine in a kid's wading pool in the basement with a small aquarium pump running and shop lights on a timer over them. They look pretty rough by spring but usually bounce back OK.
What is your visiting critter? It looks like a beaver. Is he looking for lunch at the seafood buffet? We have the ocasional hawk or crane loiter around but (FINGERS CROSSED!!) so far they have left hungry!! I have a couple of huge koi and a bunch of goldfish,shubunkin etc. and I don't want to lose them.
Think Spring! MW
MW
I some times try to keep a couple plants going with my house plants in the winter. We used to carry them all to the basement but our old bodies gave up on that idea..
Yes, our visitor is a beaver. We have no idea why he came here or where from as the nearest creek and timber are close to a mile away. DH googled and it said they are supposed to be nocturnal. We just saw him today but have noticed him in and out of the pond and up under the stream bushes and see them (the bushes) moving allot like maybe he is gnawing on them. Think maybe he likes it here! If he is still here in a couple of days we will probably call the conservation dept. D.H. thinks it is neat he is here. But, they live on plants, trees etc and I would sure hate to have it start eating on all the things it has taken us years to get growing here!
I am showing a picture of the stream D.H. Built when he did the pond so you can see where "it" has been going into and who knows how long he has hid out in there!
very cool visitor!!.. when I lived in Mi and Oh I never took my watergarden plants inside.. I just sunk them into the deepest part of the garden which was about 3 ft deep then brought them back to the correct level in the spring.. never lost a thing.. but all my stuff was hardy... I didnt do tropical cause of where I lived..
Today I checked my small garden I have now.. I only have 4 pants in it and the iris are shootin up!!! yeah!!!!
blkraven, I forgot to mention earlier that we also sink our hardy pond plants. I was just referring to the tropicals on trying to winter them. Our pond is 3-4ft deep also. We have a stream that runs from an old well and it runs all winter so there is plenty of air for the fish in the winter too.
Come on spring!! Where are you inTX ? We spend a lot of time in Houston as my Step Daughter lives there.
Cool visitor! I would much rather have a beaver than a muskrat. We had a muskrat one time - hopefully we won't have them again.
I don't sink my plants and have not had any problems - but my plants are not in pots. We foamed in the edges of the shelves and filled the shelves with pea gravel and then planted the plants directly into the pea gravel. Haven't had any problems, but my plants are all hardy, with the exception of the water hyacinths and we replace them every year.
So far today no sign of the"visitor" . Hopefully he just didn't go to get his girlfriend to bring back to set up housekeeping!!
Yes, I imagine a muskrat could be worse. Hopefully all those wild critters will stay in the timber and creek about a mile away. We were shocked when this guy showed up.
He is a fun visitor but I don't think you would like him to stay. I had beavers come and go when I lived on a river in north Georgia. They will drop trees and eat bushes. I planted a magnolia tree in the front yard and carried a lot of water to get it established the first summer. One day I went out and the tree was gone! There was nothing but a pointed stump left. Oh well. Luckily I don't think they lived close by so the problem wasn't on going and the damage wasn't extensive.
Keep us posted if he shows up again.
Helen
He's cute :)
to kdm1000
your pond , or i should say your stream is incredible, one of the nicer ones I have seen. you are so lucky to have a beaver. you must have a great habitat for animals. That little beaver is very cute. great pictures too. i have had our pond for 4 years , we used to sink the plants to the bottom. but when we bought some pond plants at a water plant nursery they said they never do. This year we left all of our marginals where they were and the lillys where they were. we had the worst winter in 100 years 65 inches os snow and all plants survived and are really hardly. 3 frogs did die. That was sad. Can you post more photos of your pond . I would love to see more photos. its lovely !!!!! Elaine
The photo is our pond durring the winter
Great pond. When can I stop by on our next trip to family in Peoria without an invitation and pay big dollars for some insights?
Geneva, IL
Chas, Thanks, if you can ever catch us home we love to show it off!
Bob, Thanks, I'll see what I have to post. How bout some summer pics of your pond?
Sorry I am so slow on this, My Son had major surgery about 10 days ago so I have been gone a lot.
Lyn
woops, think I just posted the same picture as earlier. Let me try again here.
here is a different shot of the stream. I'll try to get an up dated pic in the next few days to post.
so what do you do with the caladiums and EE over the winter? I have never had any luck overwintering those by storing them. I do have some cannas and EE that I planted in the ground really deep and they come back every year, this year though we had unusually cold temps for winter and so far I haven't seen them sprouting yet. So they may be gonners. I don't think you can sink the bulbs into the bottom of the pond,?
Frilly, I usually dry the bulbs and start again the following year or get new ones. This past winter I did manage to keep an E.E. and a caladium over winter with my house plants. I don't usually have much luck with that. I was told you have to let the bulbs leaf out good before putting them in the water or the bulbs would rot so don't think you could sink them.
Lyn