Ponds in Canada

[Shoestring Ponder]

Colleen, I would be up there in a flash!! but I am holding down the home front.We are @ 102* :FIREdevil: out there but the humidity is only in the teens. It is like going into an oven. I just spoke w DH who is in SCIl. and they are having wonderous rain storms and temps in the middle 70's! UGH!! We so need rain here. My friend took me out to Bath and Body Works and Yankee Candle Company and even in the store w AC, I was sweating bullets! I was so glad to get home to the AC and fan! Of course, this was after I spent an hour outdoors rinsing off the quilt batting from the pond and cleaning out fountain filter....and extremely yucky endeavor. :grumble: At any rate, your walkway looks Gr8 but what a job...your flowers, unbelievable! Of course, all that rain you Canucks are hoarding will do that.

:goldfish:

 

[callingcolleen1]

I was sweating like crazy moving big blocks, need six more, will get them later cause I have to work today at 1 pm. Had thundershowers this morning, so don't have to water, ever these days, was waiting for garden to dry out so I could walk in and weed. I do feel like I'm hogging the rain, the hills are usually turning brown by now, it's like I live in a different climate now, strange!!
Sure hope you get some rain soon, news talks about how hot and dry it is down there!

 

[callingcolleen1]

News on the jars experiments.... Fired the pothead cause he cracked up!! Experiments not working out as I had hoped, nothing has gone "pea green", must have used "masters miracle water"! Ha ha ha... something unusual did occur, look at the jars with no hornwort or duckweed plants, they suffered the most water evaporation! (They don't get rainwater so close to the house) (last jar has lots of hornwort, just looks dark)

 

[callingcolleen1]

Ops! How'd that double post get there! Guess I must have drank something funny in my coffee this morning and cracked up too !

 

[j.w]

Oh No poor pothead! Wonder why your water didn't go pea green? Maybe not enough sun up there? Not enough down here but turned my bathtub pond green w/ the shubbies in there.................they don't care, they prolly like it that way!

 

[Shoestring Ponder]

OH NOOOooooo Poor Pothead!! Looks like your Jade plant is thriving...outgrew Pothead! OK, so what is the decision w your experiment? If you want green water, I will certainly send you some! I don't think it will ever clear up! I removed the barley bales...had enough of them...did not do anything! I do have to tell you of something a small Mom and Pop pond store told me. They had a friend who was a Koi hobbiest. He had these fancy Koi he bred in his basement. One of his prize Koi developed an ulcer or 2 on its' body. He treated the female Koi numerous times but the ulcer(s) did not heal. Took the Koi in for evaluation to possibly a vet of some sort and the vet told him he needed to get the Koi in "Green Water." The guy asked this couple if he could put the Koi in their obviously algae water...they agreed as they have 2 large, swimming pool sized fish ponds. He brought this very large Koi over and put it in their pond. Within a few days to a week, the ulcer(s) healed. He gave the couple the fish and she lived another 6 years and had numerous fry. So, yes, it is nice to have crystal clear pond water so you can see the fish, but fish in the wild do not have crystal clear water they live in. They do not mind the algae water...we humans do. That is what keeps me going when I get upset that I only see my fish when I feed them.

:goldfish:

 

[callingcolleen1]

Shoestring that was a nice positive story. Pea green water happens for lots of people, our river is always greenish or brownish right now cause the water is high and stiring up silt. Fish seem fine in river and there appears to be lots of small babies in the shallow areas and river has lots of crayfish too. Everyone gets algae of some form, pea green water, string, or smear algae. I get some string algae that is easy to remove by twirling around a stick. The edges of my pond have short soft flowing algae, if I were a fish selling my home it would read something like this, "wall to floor shag green carpeting, perfect for setting up nursery, large open window to the blue sky, shaded by huge tall water plants, complete with a year round caretaker" Yours would read something like "naturally shaded living environment perfect hideaway for whole family, complete with natural healing pools for gramps and year round caretaker!"

 

[Shoestring Ponder]

Natural is definately better...in fact has some healing quality to it. For me, the pea soup also provided cover for my fish when we had the Great Blue Heron visit a couple weeks ago. The fish seem to be doing well as well as the bullfrog and the resident green frog. I am using some quilt batting to help remove the smaller stuff and does it get yucky! I can clean it 2-3X/day but then again, I have a rather large body of water. I also have a filter set up that I know is not large enough for the size pond we have. Cleaning the filtering material is another yucky job and it has not been made easier by the hot temps. UGH!! I just cleaned the batting 1 hr. ago, and the new stuff I put in is already to be cleaned again. DH is coming home on the 4th and I hope to get him to help me clean the filter, fountain and batting. He is looking into possibly getting a larger tank and making a larger filter that would work better for me. But that all costs $$$. The early, hot Spring here also added to the algae bloom and I have not been able to get on top of it either. I cannot believe last season we had a small pump/fountain and did not have these problems....but then again, we also did not have 90* temps in April that Spring. But I keep telling myself the fish seem happy. Only lost 1 after winter but we knew it was sick but could not catch it. We have Bullfrogs and Green Frogs living in the pond along w the fish and right now, the floating hyacinth also seem to be doing Gr8. I continue to harvest duck weed from a kiddy pool that used to be the hospital pond for sick fish...developed a crack and now has mucky water in it away from the crack end and is putting out loads of duck weed. We have oodles of dragon flys frequenting all ponds. I guess I would worry though, if the Green Frog and the Bullfrog left. I continue to hope the green water clears up a bit, but I do not stress about it.

:goldfish:

 

[callingcolleen1]

Today in the front yard, moved more pea gravel from old sandbags left over, applied different colored wood chips to add contrast to flower garden. AND I got taddies too so there!!!! Does not matter that they made of rock! Ha Ha (losing my mind, must be too much sun!) There's a rock bench over by the front pond, should have a rest there cause I worked hard in the sun.

Have a HAPPY 4th of JULY!!!

 

[Shoestring Ponder]

WOW!!!! Simply BEAUTIFUL!! :bowdown:

:goldfish:

 

[callingcolleen1]

Thanks Shoestring, it's a labour of love, they will have to drag me away one day kicking and screaming to the old folks home, plan on gardening till I'm very very old, hopefully!

 

[addy1]

Fantastic! beautiful

 

[callingcolleen1]

Was working on the front flower bed again, made the one on the bullivard bigger, (extended it to the right) and planted two purple canna's and some white flowery small bushy plant, can't remember quite what it is, was is the discounted section at Canadian Tire... can anyone stand to look at another of my front flower pictures? I was up till 3 in the morning working in it, love to work when it's cool out and no bugs bugged me that I noticed. Been working for days on the front, still got lots to do. Poppy got tired watching me all night, now she needs another lay down! Life is one garden project after another!

 

[j.w]

Nice job Colleen and I never get tired of looking at how everyone designs there beds. Gives me good idea's on how I can make some of my own so keep them coming. It's fun to share what we do and we LOVE looking at pix! Poppy has a good life and I think she's a tad spoiled and that's a good thing :razz:

 

[callingcolleen1]

Glad your not sick of my pictures cause boy do I have more! Guess what!!! I put a piece of string algae in that jar and it must of had a egg attached and now there is somebody living in it!!!!! Take a look!

look above the T on the paper label.....