Their time has come to an end.......

Oh how I will miss them.

The one above had the Apricot Smoothie you sent to me PerennialGirl. It looked glorious ..... I'm sorry I didn't catch it when it had 20 to 30 flowers open

They survived shingles dropping on them, moving them to repin the bricks, stripping the steps, and attacks of the nasty green eating machines.

This one has the New Zealand Flax that Heatherbell was so generous to share with the out-of-town attendees.

This message was edited Sep 18, 2005 11:41 AM

This one has the Tropicana Gold Canna in it.......the camera truly isn't capturing the pop factor it has.
Must admit these have been my fav plantings......and going by the neighbors comments theirs too.

One more pic.......a few more smoothies open in it. The poor lilac bushes didn't fair so well with all the original cedar shingles as well as one layer of asphalt ones falling on them.

This message was edited Sep 18, 2005 10:22 AM

The containers still look great! I noticed with my smootheis that the apricot did the best.
:) Donna

Thanks Donna.....they sure brought a smile to my face when I would get home from work. It will definitely be the apricot I'll be looking for again next year.

As I mentioned to you that I will be trying to overwinter in the house and also have taken cuttings. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
:) Donna

I will! I'm going to start lifting the Coleus and some of the other ones to see if I can overwinter them as well.

That's what I'm doing today is trying figure out where I'm going to put everything...lol.
:) Donna

Gosh Pam, they all still look pretty good to me!!!!

ggd

We've got 2 portable greenhouses now set up (Canadian Tire had one heck of a great sale on them)......2 more to go and I'm running outta window space here. :S

Not the best pic.......but this one has my baby Hoyas and I'll prolly tuck some other plants in there as well. ;)

Thanks Glenda......that they do but that nasty man with frozen fingers is coming closer and closer every night now.

Here's my plants guardian.........

What a cutie!
:) Donna

She really is......her body shape is like a heart. It is a cichlid tho and has the temper of one too. :S

They still look pretty good to me!

c v v

Thanks fancy Ü.....I really hope the F*R*O*S*T stays away. We have dug up, and treated with BATS: the bananas, the clerodendrums, ruellia, mandevellias, gingers, jasmines, thunbergias, passifloras, elephant ears, etc. etc. I'll leave the ones posted above for a little longer yet but from this point I really think they are living on borrowed time (crossing fingers and toes that the weatherman is accurate with his forecasts;).

More Brugs than I care to count still out there.......eaves troughing to go up next week. Once that is done they will be pulled around to the side yard for the back breaking haul to the basement.

This message was edited Sep 18, 2005 6:34 PM

Hi Pam, sounds like you're going to be a busy girl. Or someone's going to be busy ~ I don't think you'll be doing the roofing all by your little ol' self. lol

They may be nearing the end, but your pictures are lovely.

Thanks so much for posting them.

Joan, who likes your fishy too ;•)

LOL....nope neither of us will be doing it Joan......we have a very healthy respect of heights. We've done lower roofs before. I just know the Brugs would be smashed if we hauled them around before it is done.

re the cichlid....it is known as the Valentine Cichlid (as well as the Blood Parrot). I personally love her lips.

Hi Lilypon, love the pics, especially the one with the Tropicana Gold Canna in it. Good luck bringing in the coleus.
Ann

Thanks Ann......given the prices of gas/oil now I really hope I do. I can't even begin to imagine (and really don't want to;) what the local greenhouses are going to be charging for plants next year. :S

I love your little fishie Pam! Is she a Red Devil, or is she one of the African Cichlids?

She's a man-made cross Ginny. They are crossed in Taiwan and it's labor intensive so they charge a bit more for these. They speculate about who the parents really are.
http://www.geocities.com/parrotcichlid/main.html

This message was edited Sep 19, 2005 6:28 PM

Hey Lilypon......beautiful, sorry the end is near!

I looked at the site you provided the link for Pam, and if I was a gamblin' gal, I would bet that the parentage includes the Red Devil Cichlid from South America. I use to wholesale tropical fish back in the day and it sure looks like one to me :-) --Ginny (the other one)

Lilypon, you've had some wonderful planters this year

So am I weeds! We had a much nicer summer this year but time sure has flown by. The little 6 - 12" bananas you gave to me grew 3-4 feet this summer. :D Ü :D Next summer outta be interesting (as will be the overwintering)! :S ;)

I think your prolly right Ginny. I remember when we first got her (6 years ago) I did a lot of research then and the possible parentage came up numerous times (as did the arguments and denials.....prolly from Taiwan ;).

I was told mouth breeding cichlids are interesting to raise (am still trying to find a pet store that sells them here).....I've always eyed a Discus but I understand they aren't as fascinating. My father used to raise a large number of tropical fish (including some very pretty Discus).....he used to import them and plants from the States (importing then was a whole lot easier AND cheaper).


This message was edited Sep 19, 2005 10:21 AM

Thanks Linda! The ones above were certainly my favs.....have others in the back yard but they aren't as Victoria lush ;) as these.

Yes, we used to import from the US as well and it sure was a whole lot easier and cheaper, but that was about 30 (ouch! did I say that?) years ago. Discus are an unusal looking and pretty (I think, anyway) cichlid, but if I remember correctly they can also be a little persnikity to raise. Sometimes they just don't seem to want to live. Your father obviously had the magic touch.

Mouth breeders are a lot of fun. You should see them with a brood of younguns. When there is any perceived threat, momma just scoops them all up in her mouth and tries to swim away from the area. The fun happens when she can't get as far away as she needs to to feel safe. LOL Have you ever seen a fish with a mouthful of fish try to bite another fish without opening her mouth? Cause as soon as she opens her mouth the fry think it's safe and swim out, so she has to rush around gathering them all up again.

Just an interesting aside: Did you know that in the seahorse family it's daddy that gets to be pregnant? After anywhere between 2 and 6 weeks he then has the pleasure of going through up to 2 days of labour to release as many as 200 baby seahorses. Momma does stick around however. They generally mate for life.

Yep he did very well with raising the Discus......when I was a child his had young and I remember the little ones attached to the adults to eat their parents secretions. He tended to and still does research anything he is interested in. He also had great success with the Siamese Fighting Fish (Betta splendens)......he had complete survival of their young. I remember the bubble nest, the young and the four hundred plus jars that each of the young had to put into. Also remember my mother NOT being pleased.

Please give me the name of a mouth breeder to bug the local pet stores for. :)

Ginny I knew that about the seahorses but hadn't thought about them for a long time....they were one creature that really fascinated me when I was young (dad and mom subscibed to National Geographic and I had first dibs when salt water fish were featured).. I was a hopin' that Dad would start a salt water aquarium then. Thank you for reminding me about them......I won't tackle that expensive hobby either but it's nice to have that memory awakened.

This message was edited Sep 19, 2005 12:23 PM

Pam
Nice pots and great plantings. Are you going to try to bring the Flax in? I will be giving mine a try and will let you know how hard it is. Do you save your seeds for the millet? They say it doesn't come true but I have found that's not the case. I just leave mine on all winter outside for interest, hence no storage issue, and then do a sprout test in the spring and plant the sprouted ones.
The fish is cute too but I bet she has trouble protecting the outside plants!
Here in Edmonton the place called Big Al's had a mouth breeding pair in one of their sale tanks with the whole suck in the mouth thing happening. Nicole stood and watched for ages. I don't remember which Chichlid (sp?) family they were.
Good luck on your brug dive to the basement!
Ann

Here are a few mouthbreeders to look for Pam:

* From Lake Victoria and Lake Malawi - any of the Haplochromis
* From Lake Tanganyika - any of the Cyprichromis and Paracyprichromis
* From Lake Malawi - Petrotilapia (Mbuna?)

Please note that the cichlids of Lake Victoria are considered endangered, and some of them are actually extinct, due to the introduction of non-native predator species. Try to ensure that any Lake Victoria cichlids you purchase are tank raised.

--Ginny

Hi Ann
I'll be bringing the NZ Flax in. Two are already inside and I'll be digging the above one out soon. DH told me the forecast for Thursday is +1C so I'm going to be playing it safe.

I've save seed from the Millet before......last fall I left one outside, put one head in the freezer, one in the fridge and one in my seed box. Didn't try to germinate them this spring but hopefully will be able to do it next year. I'll leave it outside now that I know one of the above methods works....thank you! :)

Valentine (my parrot cichlid) has the outside covered......her buddy is an oversize Cocker Spaniel (normally with a loving nature) who is capable of greeting unwelcome guests with a howl that would scare the Hound of the Baskervilles. Last time he did it DH and I were terrified to go outside...... we thought mortal injury had been done to him (or he had done it to whoever had tried to enter our backyard). :S

Thanks re: Brugs.....our muscles are gradually building up to their pots (also won't be stupid enough to water them prior to the haul;).


*******************************************************************************

Thanks Ginny for the list I'll copy it off and take it in. I'll try to avoid the endangered species......I have my doubts the pet stores here would know where they were raised (unless a local was their supplier).

What species of fish have you raised Ginny?


This message was edited Sep 19, 2005 4:35 PM

LOL As a tropical fish wholesaler (both salt and fresh water), I didn't actually raise any of them. The object of that game was to get them in and out as fast as you could. We only kept them long enough in quarantine tanks to make sure they were healthy before they were shipped off to their new owners.

The fishies that I raised, with the exception of a pair of Red Devils, weren't generally quite as aggressive as African and South American Cichlids are. They included Oscars, Spotted Knife Fish, Jack Dempseys, Monos (in fresh water), Shovel-nose Catfish, Puffers (in fresh water), Betas, Gouramis, and Fancy Goldfish (Lionhead Oranda, Bubble-Eye, Puppy-Face) that I can think of right now. The most exotic fish we ever had pass through our wholesale tanks was a Nurse Shark about 18 inches long.

The Oscars were fun fish to raise. I used to hand feed them dew worms, and there was this one smaller guy who was a real little piglet. One day he grabbed this truly humungous worm out of my hand and started swallowing....and swallowing....and swallowing....until he was filled right up and couldn't get any more down. He was still trying to swallow more as he turned belly up in the tank so I had to grab the other end of the worm, dangle him by the worm right out of the tank, and shake it until I finally pulled it out of him!

I have to tell you my Red Devil story too. We bought the pair as juveniles when they were still bright lemon yellow. After we had them for a year or so and they were just starting to turn red, my stepfather decided we should put them, and all the other cichlids in the tank, outside in a friend's huge pond for the summer to let them really grow. Well, come fall when he tried to net them back out again he discovered that there were two big DEEP holes in the bottom of that pond that the fish hid in. He never did recover even a single one. The best laid plans........

LOLOL..... definitely following the adage *don't take your job home with you.* ;)

The Lionhead and Bubble Eye I have had and released in my ponds......the Bubble Eye got one of his eyes caught in the string algae filament and I had to rescue the poor thing and do some fancy and quick unwinding. They say they shouldn't go into ponds (the forementioned I'm sure is one of the reasons why) but mine did survive out there for a number of years. Some of the above Dad had in his tanks..........the ones that stand out in my mind were the fancy Angel Fish, Discus and the Beta.

When I read about your Nurse Shark I remembered a couple, next door to us, when we lived in the Battlefords. His tanks had varius sharks as well as one of the largest Oscars I have ever seen. On the other side was a young man who had a tank with a fish that looked similiar to an Angel but its coloring was yellow, black and white. Gorgeous! I can't remember if the tank had peat moss or if the water would have been called brackish (may be one and the same).

LOLOL I love your Dew Worm story (I've seen some of my gold fish do something similiar when an oversize earthworm crawled into their pond). I can't remember if Dad fed any of his fish those but I do remember him raising some creepy crawlies in the dark in a container that had bread soaked in milk. I'll never forget the smell and I always knew when he'd opened it to feed his baby fish. Can you tell me what they are called and do you know of a Canadian source for them? I've checked all over and can't find them here anywhere now.

As soon as I starting reading your story about the Red Devils and the pond I had a feeling of icy doom! Says one who has spent hours in the newly fallen snow trying to get the last stragglers into the net. It always amazes me how they act so placid and tame during the summer but develop jet propulsion speed when one is trying to save them from turning into a fishsicle in the not too distant future (my ponds freeze into a solid 12' x 10' x 4' block of ice).

The fish that looked like an Angel but was the wrong colour would have been a Mono (Monodactylus argenteus), and yes, it is actually a brackish water (low salt content, usually found in marshes and at the mouth of rivers exiting into a body of salt water) fish. The Mono can be, and often is, weaned back gradually into straight fresh water but doesn't do quite as well there. Here's a link to the Google search results for pics:
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&q=Monodactylus+argenteus&spell=1

I have no idea what creepy crawlies your Dad may have been raising as fish food! LOL I don't think I could live in the same house with them. We used to use brine shrimp, worms, frozen crumbled beef heart, some little teeny freeze-dried worm things whose name escapes me right now, and live feeder fish supplemented with commercial pellets and live plants. And we tried to keep little fish in different tanks from the big fish - rule #1 ;-)

Found them (AND a Canadian Source!!! :) Ü :) White Worms
: http://www.creatureville.com/insects/white%20worm%20culture.htm ( I phoned DF to find out their name). I searched before under another name he remembered but he didn't have it right that time.


Thank you...... it was a Mono and he had his tank brackish. His had more pronounced yellow and black on it then the links show but that is what his was.

Amazing how well the larger ones can grow if their young are in the same tank! ;) This year I hope I have fish of all the same sex out there.

Aha! That site gave me the name of those "little teeny freeze-dried worm things" - tubifex worms. We also occasionally used live ones but never cultured them ourselves.

LOL I know exactly what you mean about fish and their growth rates. I currently have 3 "pondless" pond fish in a 50 gallon aquarium in my living room, and there they will stay until their new home is finished (next year DH?). I bought all 3 of them, 2 comets and 1 koi, when they were 1 inch long about 4 years ago. They spent the good weather outside in a very tiny pond on my patio and the winter in a 10 gallon aquarium. Unfortunately, goldfish are no respecters of the golden rule of most other fish: "Thou shalt not grow any bigger than thy environment will support!" Now the comets are 6 or 7 inches long and the koi must be 10! Groooooooan - and the new pond insert is only 220 US gallons!

Oh well. I'm sure when they inevitably outgrow their new environments I'll be able to trade them with someone who has smaller fish and wants larger ones, maybe even at the store where I purchased them. Maybe I can even get me a coupla little green froggies like sanannie's in her picture: http://davesgarden.com/forums/fp.php?pid=1759132

Do ya think we should maybe start a new "Pond Fish, Canadian Style" thread for this topic? We've kinda hijacked your thread here about the last golden days of summer!

no problem. ;) I've enjoyed it and it's my thread. Will respond later....... gotta get going to put my 8 hours in a work. :(