Hope Springs Eternal!

Water is flowing!  Here is the result of the work I described in my first post.   I went out with my camera because first sign of life was spotted!  A spring bull frog moved in and took up residence in the large pool.  He sits beside the red floating heater. It is there to keep a breathing hole in the ice in winter, so the fish can get oxygen and an exchange of gases can occur.  I should probably take the heater out now, but the fish are enjoying the warm the water near it, but soon it will have to go.

Too bad I did not have a more powerful zoom lens, as the frog jumped in the water when I got too close. Hopefully I will capture him before he moves on, which he will most likely do soon.  A bull frog appeared last spring also (same one?) but he moved on after a couple weeks.  Bull frogs must be a harbinger of spring.

The other signs of life are the koi and goldfish that are now swimming at the surface and hanging out near the heater. This is the reason the bullfrog hangs out there also. He is probably eating the small fry (baby fish) which is fine with me! If they all grew up they would quickly overwhelm the pond with waste. You can not see the fish in these photos because it is early spring, and they are still very shy. They drive to the bottom whenever a figure approaches.

There are probably 50 or more fish in the pond, believe it or not.  But only five Koi.  The pond can only support these five Koi by the time they are full grown. The rest of the fish are Shubumkins and Goldfish (probably Comets), all except two have spawned in the pond from eggs that arrived with pond plants. You can just make out a couple koi on the bottom edge of the pond pics.

The water level is a bit low but I thought it was going to rain a lot this weekend, and wanted rain water to fill it up.  Since it didn't, I will use the hose.  The waterfall is running a bit slow as well.  I have not figured out why yet.

With a pond, there is always a mystery to solve. Usually it is, "Why is the water level dropping so fast?" The answer will be found on the edges of the waterfall or top pool where the water level is very close to the top of the liner. The soil under it will occasionally sink. Every year, I will search for these areas and easily fix them.  The waterfall may be running slow because of something clogging the pump that is submerged in the bottom of the pond, or there may be a leak in the hose fittings at the filter.  I have not double checked these things yet.  Hopefully it is not that my pump is wearing out!  However, the pump did stop a few times last year because of calcium deposits were built up on the impeller.  The nice man at Harper's Lawn Ornaments took it apart and cleaned it for me last year. I may have to pull it up and take the pump apart to inspect this again and soak it in vinegar.

You can see the thyme plants are already starting to grow back in between the stepping stones.  On the  bottom right of the photo above is lovely pink Phlox, which will bloom very early in spring.  Across the pond you can just make out where the bog garden lies.  The bog is filled with carnivorous plants. As spring progresses, beautiful Pitcher Plants will spring up - first their prehistoric looking flowers, then the pitchers themselves.  Also Venues Flytraps and Sundews.

Next the many Irises will take over--beautiful, two-toned, purple Bearded Irises and also Yellow and Blue Flag pond irises, which thrive both in the water and also in a wetland area. They take over very quickly, so if anyone wants some, please let me know!  I also have Japenese Irises.

Towards summer the Catmint and regular Mint will flourish, and many summer bulbs.  I will cut the regular Mint back severely by July.  Water Lilies will sprout from their pans in the bottom of the pond by summer.  I have a little trouble getting my pond plants to thrive because the PH of the pond is a bit too high--about 8.4ppm.  There seems to be no way to get the PH to come down into the 7's range.  But the fish are happy.  There is also a bit too much shade.  But the fish are happy!

Here is the retaining wall that my husband Doug built. If you look at the hillside and imagine the line of the slope you will begin to understand how many loads of dirt we brought in.  Probably 15-20 regular-sized pickup beds worth.  Can't quite remember, but it was a lot.

The whole back side of the garden area near the retaining wall is planted with native, orange Day Lilies. I still need to rake out the old vegetation. It is also past time to cut back the ornamental grass, but not too late. There are many other plants that I have not mentioned yet--mainly because I can't remember everything that is in there!

I think by now you have a good understanding of the bones of our pond, and will know what to look forward to in my posts as spring and summer go on!  I am open to answering any questions you may have.  Ask away, and I will do my best to answer with the knowledge I have accumulated over these four years.  Looking forward to hearing your comments. You can also sign up to follow this blog using Google Reader, which is very handy if you like to follow several blogs at once.  I am starting to do this myself and it is very enjoyable to check in and see what people have posted.  :-)

See you next time!
Sally