After a cold and wet winter and looking very sad, the pond has rejuvenated itself in the last two weeks of unseasonably warm temps from 80-85F. The Cannas are just beginning to peek up and the fish are frisky.
The Pond is Coming Into Its Own
And another view of the waterfall.
Very pretty!! The reflections are very relaxing.
simply drooling ...
wonderful!
This first time I remember you posting here at DG, it was your gorgeous pond and photography that stuck with me. Glad to see you still have it! :) Beautiful!
Are these recent? It's all grown up! Mine has just barely thawed out. I can see my fish made it... but that's about it.
Recent poppysue?......well they were taken awhile ago, like 48hrs. :-) About 6pm on Thursday....I know you are still in the depths of winter, but I'm still betting you'll be digging a foundation for your GH as soon as things thaw out.
I've actually trimmed and thinned out the Monkey flower once already this year.....otherwise it will devour everything.
that is absolutely one of the most georgeous ponds I have ever seen. Sure makes mine look puny. Wow.
This is absolutely beautiful and I want one like it. Starting 1 in a few days.I don't even dream about it being that drop dead beautiful but I'm sure gonna try.
Happenstance, in your first photo, there is a low-growing, moundy, shrubby plant right at water's edge (at 12:00). Do you know the name of that attractive little plant?
Not only is your pond gorgeous, but set against that hilly background, it is absolutely glorious!
Jean
Thanks for all the nice compliments on my pond.....it is a real joy, but wasn't always. The first couple of years were a constant battle with algae and goooo. It's been in 5 years come summer and is beginning to look like I imagined it.
The little mounds at the back edge of the pond Jean? That's common Mimulus guttatus http://plantsdatabase.com/go/37920/index.html
It can be very invasive, but is easy to rip out and does the best job of anything I've tried in protecting the butyl liner where it is exposed at the rim of the pond. It forms an extremely dense mat of roots that resembles the cocoa fiber liners for hanging baskets. Very thick and tough, but can be easily cut with big clippers when you need to trim it back.
It is evergreen here in 9b, forms a dense low growing mat of foliage in the winter. Come Spring it shoots up like that when it gets ready to flower. I prune it all back several times a year and compost many wheelbarrows full during a season.
Shoulda, woulda, coulda......my number one tip for anyone tempted to build a pond: make it BIG, that empty hole looks huge, but once you get plants in and the surrounding plants fill in it becomes visually smaller. :-)
And my #2 tip for ponds (this is the voice of someone who didn't do it right the first or second try) is to buy a BIG filtration system, the best you can afford. My pond almost became a rose garden after the first year and the language I used was very unpleasant a good portion of that whole year! LOL
But I digress.....here's the Monkey Flower in bloom on another portion of the rim:
And a closer view of the back edge of the pond where the Mimulus isn't blooming yet, but the Cannas are coming on strong:
You can also see my favorite image of my pond at this link:
http://davesgarden.com/contest/2003/image.php?rid=937
And some of my pond puppies:
http://davesgarden.com/contest/2003/image.php?rid=1027
Happenstance, it was so kind of you to go to the trouble of defining this for me, but I do appreciate it. I can just imagine relaxing around the pond with a cold glass of iced tea! But what do have to feed those animals??? They are huge!
Again, thanks! Lovely, lovely, lovely!
Happenstance, your pond is beautiful, the fish are gorgeous. I love the cannas. I bought a purple leaved canna last year and it was very nice but I lost the tuber over winter so don't have it any more. It was quite expensive so i decided if I couldn't keep it over winter it was too expensive for an annual. thanks for posting all your lovely pictures. Donna
"The Pond is Coming Into Its Own"?
My word Happenstance,
it looks better than most when in their prime!
Excellent job!
I really like the way it anchors your property!
Ric
The Koi and the goldfish are getting huge and they do eat a lot. I buy the biggest/cheapest bags/boxes of general purpose food - the Koi sticks and the round pellets.
They eat a lot of Mimulus too....during the winter they keep it trimmed back to the pond's edge, but come Spring even they can't keep up with the rampant growth. They go through eating binges where they will literally eat all day and the Koi beach themselves onto the rim to get at the more savory bits. They make big slurping sounds as they munch their way around the rim. It is hard to estimate the weight of the big white Platimum Koi......but I would guess 10lbs each.
The gold fish started out as those 12cent feeder fish you see in pet shops. I actually paid 25cents for a few of them. They were about an inch long and I used them to test the water before adding Koi. All but a few of the 50 I started with are still with us, one got stuck in the skimmer sadly. We get a few babies each year, six from last year are turning from the baby brown coloration to gold, white, black mixtures.
I've lost one Koi to a hawk....it was so big he dropped it and left it to die in the sun. Poor fish. My Koi are all inexpensive throw-aways (from a collector's viewpoint), with the exception of two $$$$$ beauties I bought several years ago. The hawk chose one of those two pricey ones. :(
Love to see the Cannas start to come back each year....they get bigger and bigger and spread each year. Some are actually growing IN the pond after creeping off the back edge. I just got several small Bengal Tigers in a nice trade with a fellow DGer...can't wait to see them grow up.
For those of you thinking of a pond, still working on the balance, losing heart........this will give you an idea of where mine started. (The image is terrible, but you get the idea. This was 5 years ago, and 3 digital cameras ago......both pond and camera have come a long way!) Even though it is a terrible image, I can guarantee that the water really was GREEN from algae and BROWN from runoff of the newly planted bed at the back edge. In the upper right hand corner of the image was the start of the waterfall, I was still digging rocks out of the open space outside the back fence and the water color wasn't really that fun to see cascading over the rocks.
Now THAT looks like ponds here in Spring! lol
This shot really gives you a scale for the size though.
It's maturing beautifully!
Ric
Hi Ric -
The pond is an irregular 22' x 18' and only 24" deep at the deepest point. It goes against all the "experts" advice about depth, but I have several young grandchildren and didn't want the worry of a deep pond. It has worked well, the fish are always visible, not hiding out in the depths of a six foot deep pond and in our climate we don't have to deal with the cold/ice issues in the winter months. Besides that Mr.Bobcat (my DH) stopped when he hit rock and solid clay.
You like my icky image from the past......here's one that is even worse. :-)
*DROOLS* !
I HAVE JUST HAD TO START OVER ON MY POND. LOTS OF THINGS WERE STOLEN. BUT, WE'VE MOVED SINCE. I WILL BE POSTING PIC'S, BUT SO FAR MY VOTE IS ON YOU FOR THE WINNING PICTURE.
YOUR POND IS ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS.
ALMOST, AND YES, ALMOST, MAKES ME WANT TO MOVE TO CALIFORNIA.
JUST BEAUTIFUL,
TRACI S