Garden Projects 4 - 2010

Your pond may increase your work load a bit Karen, but it sure has paid off in a lovely setting. Very pretty.
D-nut is an amazement to me. Love to read your posts.
Jumper don't you just love an empty bed to fill. Sounds like you are well on the way to making a nice garden there. Don't forget to show the after pics too.

Karen, am really loving the pond....nice job! Jumper, what clems are you planting? Dnut, your poem was an inspiration.

With moving water you really don't need fish to take care of mosquitos. As heron food it is expensive. Looks like fun.

i agree lucy - saw a heron here last weekend and the first black water snake out sunning:)

Karen, your pond is lovely! I'm surprised they aren't more work to keep maintained. I spend a couple hours each spring and fall cleaning my fountain out too, and that is tiny compared to your ponds. I love the sound it makes, and love to see the birds landing on it and taking their little showers. The chipmunks seem to like it too.

What you 'clean' from the bottom of the pond is 100% natural - just like any pond in nature.

A fish tank is the same. Fish and little creatures poo and pee. It turns to ammonia then nitrite and then nitrate. These 3 steps can kill fish. Then the cycle evolves and the good bacteria will eat the ammonia and nitrites and stuff.

Yes - the key is 'balance'. My experience, with or without fish, is that when there is a change of any kind (adding fish, adding plants for the first time, removing shade, etc.), there will be a period of imbalance. The worst thing to do is to start adding stuff to try to bring it back into balance. That only causes things to bounce around and you never catch up. Just deal with algae or unclear water for a while and it will eventually re-balance.

With fish you don't have that luxury. The temporary imbalance (nitrates, ammonia) can kill them. This is why I will not do fish again. I have enough chores as it is.

Fish tanks are nothing in my book. Feed them and once a month change 10% of the water. Done. I replaced my 150 gal with a 55 gal at christmas time.

D-nut, I love the poem, thanks. I've got a red and a purple clem. I'll post the names after I look them up on their tags. One blooms spring to mid summer and the other summer to early fall.

Got a good amount done. Nice and cool for working. Love it.

Planted four JM's, assembled and put in a trellis, planted two clems beneath it, planted two other clems (all from Evey). I then weeded my shade bed. My back is killing me!

Sherrie, love the fish tank. I went to art class, did nothing outside today.

Nice fish tank, Sherrie. That's something I don't have. I want a salt water tank. I'm right by the ocean, and I often find snails, crabs and such I would like to have in a tank. Might get a small one.

Thanks for all the compliments on my pond, everyone. I can't wait to get some floating water plants for it for the summer. I buy them every year. I'd like one more waterlily, a miniature one. That would be nice.

Cousin Nut, you're a poet, too. Is there no end to what you can do?

Karen

Salt water is far more work then fresh water and much more costly.

mmmmm crab mmmmmmm snails mmmmmm seafood mmmmmm

Yes, I know it's more work, but I only want a very small tank. Nothing spectacular, just something to put a few things in that can be found on the local beaches around here. I would like a hermit crab, the kind that live in the ocean, not the land ones. My sister in TX had gotten a couple, and she said they were incredibly easy to care for. When I went to visit her I loved watching them eat.

Karen

Karen, You may do well with a brackish tank for what you want to do. They are much easier and less expensive than the coral reef tropical ocean type, a number of fish do well in that environment also. Ric

nutsfordaylily, great job on the pond. We have not dug a pond yet, just the endless stream which is a total joy, running almost year round. We turn it off when it would freeze solid, but turn it back on days when it will run free even in the dead of winter. Love it and I love fish tanks too, especially salt water ones, but lots of work, lots of money. We had a big one for years. I have seen some small tanks that house local sea life here at our local science museum and they do have crabs and tidal fish in them. It will be fun to see what you end up finding for it. Patti

yesterday we went to a friends in NH for a frame raising cookout for their future home - i have mentioned in the past the the rock ledge they live on - not sure what the stone actually is but it is white with some red veins and crystals running through it - they had to dynamite the whole area to build the home - well there are piles and piles of stone and i came home with three large primo pieces that i will be displaying in the bed behind the brick patio i built last year - the red veins are the same color as the brick so i am hoping the color scheme will work - what i would have given for a large pick-up and bobcat to bring home some really huge pieces. i will get some pics after they are set up.

one side note my wife did not even complain about bringing these home - she knew i would be getting some and i'm glad she didn't look in the back of her xterra - i filled it with only three rocks:)

Nice! Can't wait to see.

Bill your new rock finds sound really interesting and I do agree that the color scheme sounds really nice too. Looking forward to seeing them.

Great find Bill. You need a truck!

Here's a picture of the loooonng front where I'm planting my zillions of groundcover. My front yard has always been a challenge for me. It's on a slope and not very deep so I have never had much of a vision for what to do with it. I don't spend any time out front so I just want it to look reasonably nice and be low maintenance. Any ideas?

Azalea grove

Two terraces with some stuff already growing. The JM has been there for about 15 years. (THis pic is a couple years old - addition wasn't finished yet!)

From the other direction. I planted the Bloodgood last year. Hopefully that will eventually break up the very long look the the yard and house. The deck is going to be replaced at some point.

This message was edited Apr 30, 2010 9:35 AM

Last year it was an overgrown mess. Had to remove 3 large stumps like this one

bribed the niece and nephew to help pick up rocks

Very nice, Christina! Is all that grass on the slope coming out?

I'll take a "today" shot later today.

This message was edited Apr 30, 2010 9:39 AM

Yup. I plan to simply layer newpaper over it, cover with a few inches of compost/topsoil mix and plant the vinca in the soil. I did that last year and it worked like a charm :)

nice project - now where the niece and nephew smiling at the end of the day?

Bill sounds like Rhodolite(garnet) it's all over the Mountains on the Maine/N.H. border.

Songs thats going to look great!!

Big project but looks like you are well on the way to completion. Vinca is going to be a great addition to the slope with the earlier batch that looks very happy. Bribery is always good idea to get help. Looks like they enjoyed the whole thing too.

wha can't wait to see the pics of the new stones. They sound prettiful with the veins. Songs that is looking REALLY good!

Those stones sound great, Bill.

Vinca will look real nice on that hill, I would plants some bulbs so that will grow thru the vinca in the spring.

I'm going to raise my 'Don't Look There Bed' from ground level to 8" high. I need it to retain more moisture which is stolen by the blue spruce and mugo pine. Could I put a plastic barrier around it underground? It gets no natural moisture being under the eaves of the house except runoff from the cement path when it rains (which it hardly ever does here). Or would that make it too wet? How deep should it be? The cement path is 8" deep (I believe based on the one we ripped out in the back) so I'm thinking if I dig it out down to the base of the path, plastic down house and up the path and lay 1" of gravel and then my compost and good loam it could be it's own little system.

Not sure about the plastic, d-nut. What about winter - you must get lots of snow that melts in spring. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will weigh in.

Snow melts and evaporates in the Chinooks. We mostly have the dead brown look happening in the winter Songs.

I think I'm done for the day. My hands are shot (early arthritis). Here are a couple pics.

Moved five hostas and planted them in front of the wall. Planted 25 variegated liriope around the hostas. Planted the 75 creeping phlox (3 colors) on top of the wall in front of the bloodgood. Planted about 300 of the vincas.

The orange extension cord separates the perennials from the groundcovers. I haven't decided what else to put in the perennial section. Can't be too tall because DH will complain that they hide his walls :)

This is where I'm planting yesterday's purchases. 2 tree peonies, a dwarf viburnum, 3 PJM rhodies, siberian iris. Already planted to the right is cornus kousa 'wolf eyes'