Lotus blossom

The lotus had one gorgeous blossom in the summer of 2013.  Well worth the wait.  Hopefully the plant will winter over as it is a cold hardy variety and we will get to see more blooms in 2014.

The Great Flood of Sept. 7, 2013

A huge downpour had far reaching consequences for our neighborhood with basements and garages flooding all through the area.  The rainfall exceeded the pond capacity, and in this photo, the pond stretched clear to the back corner of the lot.  Fortunately the fish had the sense to stay in the deepest part of the pond because I half expected to see fish swimming through my yard.

Hail Damage

Water hyacinth leaves damaged by the hail storm

Shredded Lettuce

The violent hail storm shredded all of the water lettuce and water hyacinth leaves.  Had to throw most of them out after this photo was taken.

Water Lily

this cold hardy lily was divided in 2013 (rather poorly due to my laziness and the wrong sized container) but still managed to provide some beautiful blooms

Water Poppy

My friend Cindy gave me some water poppy plants and they have thrived over the summer.  The fish don't seem interested in eating them.  These should winter over and reappear next year.

The year of the floating plants

In 2012 I could barely get the floating plants to thrive, but in 2013 when we came back after being gone for a month, this is what greeted us!  Complete and total and excessive success.  What is the difference?  Don't really know but I have two guesses.  First, I used a floating island to protect the first few floaters (water lettuce and water hyacinth).  Maybe having a safe haven allowed them to quickly propagate rather than having their roots chewed off the moment they started to multiply.  Obviously, there are way more plants here than would fit in the island.  Second, it is possible that the age of the pond has allowed the right amount of natural balance to provide enough fertilizer to offset the alkaline rocks that line our pond and affect our water.
Summer maintenance included weekly liquid fertilizer added to the pond and barley mixture added to the filter.  The UV filter ran all summer and we never had a pea soup algae bloom.  Had lots of other types of algae, but not the single cell problem of 2012.
It was a hot dry summer and I left most of the plant cover on the pond for August, even though the books say not to.  Everything was thriving so well and the water looked so natural and clean that I wanted to keep it shaded with all the plants.

Koi

All the warnings in the pond books are correct:  Do NOT add koi to small ponds!  My koi, Spotty, just keeps growing, and here is seen coming out of the water to eat.  Soon he will be knocking at the back door.

Tiger Eye Sumac

The summer of 2013 was a good one for the Tiger Eye Sumac (top center).  It sprouted a baby off to the right, and my newer sumac (to the right of the white legged pot) was big enough to finally be noticeable.  The ground cover, golden Creeping Jenny, was beautiful this year, but had to be pulled out of the waterfall because it would cause the pond level to drop by siphoning water the wrong direction.

horsetail

In 2013 the horsetail finally took off and grew really tall!  Of course, I know this means that next year it will be invasive, but it is such a wonderful plant that I couldn't resist adding it to the edge of the pond.  I did notice that some sections were growing up the hill out of the water, so that would be fine if it spreads that way.

Swallowing a Fish the Wrong Way

What happens when a snake tries to swallow a fish backwards?  As you can see above, the fins stick out and prevent an easy swallow.  I'm not sure what happened eventually, because watching a snake eat is really slllloooowwww, but I did discover on-line that fish will regurgitate food that doesn't go down, or when they have eaten a big meal and need to escape a predator quickly.  Who knew?

Sage in bloom

Although the sage (herb) plant takes up a lot of space, when it blooms it is spectacular!  Top center is my tiny Japanese Maple, slated to take over this area when mature.

Miniature cattail

The thin stemmed plant with the little round dark brown balls is my Miniature Cattail, as seen here between the leaves of the much larger variagated cattail.

white dove

This lovely white dove visited the pond to take a bath.  Didn't see much more of him, but two other types of doves:  Mourning and Ring Necked, are regular visitors.

Irish Moss (sometimes called Scotch moss in this color)

I didn't realize this moss had a lovely small flower!  The moss survived the cold winter very nicely and has naturalize around the stones lining the pond this year.

snake on the prowl

This little garter snake was very unconcerned that we were watching him.  He obviously is looking at something in the water

Quail keeping watch

Quail come to our bird feeder and pond and always have one bird who stands watch over the others.

THE SNAKE FINALLY CAUGHT A FISH!

We watched them hunt last summer, but here, finally, is a shot of one of the snakes with a goldfish.  Too bad it was one of the pretty ones!  For over two hours I kept an eye on the snake's progress:  he was very camera shy and would retreat under the rock if he spotted me lurking behind the cattails with my camera.  Apparently the snake could not swallow the fish in that position because he always came back out when I left.

Spring 2013 plantings

In a continual effort to keep down the weeds, I decided to try pea gravel this year.  Bags of gravel have been dumped all around the back of the pond.  I moved the white legged pot up to the top of the hill (well, Renee actually moved it for me) and am trying maroon sweet potato vine which I hope will spill down the front of the pot, and papyrus, which I am hoping will add tall interest to the back area.  The Japanese maple survived the very cold winter (reddish leaves in the upper left), and the golden creeping Jenny is naturalized all around the spillway of the waterfall.

Spring 2013

Warm weather has come to stay and the winter weeds and dead plants have been removed from the pond area.  String algae is easy to remove this year because I purchased an "Algae Witch", which works great.  We started the UV filter to try to stay on top of the single cell algae bloom.  Barley products are being added regularly to the filter, and the fish no longer need any medicine.

cold hardy lotus

My friend Susan had an extra cold-hardy lotus and gave me this tuber.  Here you can see the first leaves shooting up.  In late May, despite the rocks I put in the basket, the fish dug up the tuber and I found it floating in the pond.  It was been replanted, but I'm sure that adventure did not help the health of the plant.

fish health in the spring

As noted in my pond books, the fish struggle with poor health in the spring.  I added pond salt this year to help and kept a close eye on things, adding medicines as I spotted fin shredding and white spots.  In spite of these efforts, the large white koi would not heal and I had to remove her and put her down.  She was very unhealthy at the end of last winter as well.  By the time I made the decision to remove her this year she would barely move and was sort of beached in the shallowest part of the pond.  Only a couple other fish were afflicted and they quickly healed up. It seemed like the prettier the fish, the worse their health; none of the non-colored goldfish were affected at all.

floating basket

I purchased this floating basket at the end of last year and used it all winter long (with a round fiber placemat inside) as a sort of cover for the fish to hide under.  The original purpose of the basket is to be used as seen here:  it is a place for floating plants that will protect their roots from hungry fish.  I put one water hyacinth, one water lettuce and a small piece of some other floater in the basket.  As I thought might happen, the basket area filled up with what looked like mosquito larvae because the fish couldn't get to them to eat them. I also saw very, very tiny fish fry (which have now disappeared).  I tipped one side of the basket into the water to try to circulate the water better, which sort of worked.  The occasional fish makes their way into the basket area, hopefully eating any mosquito larvae they find.  However, I noticed the large spotted koi actually IN the basket the other day!  Hopefully that won't happen too often and these floating plants will be allowed to flourish this summer.

bird bath time!

Late winter and all the birds are thrilled to take a bath in the newly started-up waterfall.  Here we see Cedar Waxwings and a starling enjoying the water.

pond in winter with no snow

The pond in winter is beautiful when covered with snow, but at winter's end looks a little bedraggled.  The Irish moss by the stone steps keeps some color, and the Weeping Blue Atlas cedar will eventually add winter interest. (center of photo with brown stake).  There also is a small juniper shrub that can't be seen and a bushy Whipcord Western Red Cedar (on the right, middle of frame) that will get about 2 feet tall.

Pond under ice

The pond heater always keeps an opening to allow for exchanging gases.  Fish are very quiet and don't move or eat much during the winter.

delicate ice crystal flower on surface of pond

Ice Crystals on the pond

Bitter Cold January

  

January has been bitterly cold with temperatures dipping down to below 0 degrees.  The fish seem to be fine.  Very quiet and all stacked on top of each other in the deepest part.  The ice has been thick enough for the dogs to walk out on the pond and drink from the open hole provided by the pond heater.   I had to turn off the waterfall when the pond level dipped too low for the pump and I discovered I had no way of refilling the pond since the hose was full of frozen water.  Hmm...need to think that through for next year.