Well so lately I have been adding plants and wood to the pond.
Here is what it looks like now:
At first I wasn't sure about the long branch going across the pond, I was trying to suspend it over it, but couldn't. But I left it and it started to grow on me. It is in the water a bit, but I'm not too worried about it leaching anything as it has been left in the elements for quite awhile, so I will see what happens. I could be totally wrong, just making a wide assumption hoping that any bad nutrients have gone with the weathering it has received. If anyone is knowledgeable on the subject, please chime in.
Here are the two miniature cattails (Typha Minima) I added.
In this picture you can see the horsetail I found growing wild that I hope will take off and shoot runners and pop up around all the larger rocks here, but time will tell. On the right side you can see the zebra rush (Scirpus zebrinus) I picked up today:
Here is a (left to right) purple pickeralweed (Pontederia cordata) and a Bloody Dock (Rumex sanguineus):
It was kind of funny, the lady working at the time who saw me pick it out said that she got her husband one 3 years ago and it keeps coming up each spring. Was funny because she sound sad and annoyed when she said it.
In this picture you can see some horsetail in the foreground and some full size cattails that I dug out of the ditch near my parents house and planted last fall after bare rooting them. I think if they take off will add a nice tall screen with the reed grass I planted and the tall stump I added to that side of the deck. Also you can see a stump I added on top of the cave.
In this picture I have some more horsetail and cattail, and I also have some hornwart that is weighted down and wedged between some rocks. I also have Red Stemmed Parrot's Feather (Myriophyllum Brasiliensis).
I also picked up 2 water lilies from Menards and placed them on top of the cave to hide the pumps, and am thinking I will move the parrots feather over there too to give it some more room to grow taller. I did find out that I can lay some 2x4s across the right angle there in the deck and reach far enough down in the water that I can place stuff on the cave, so good to know for future reference.
I also moved the water lettuce and hyacinth into the little spillway (probably 6" deep or so) below my filter return waterfall because the two water lettuce I threw in the pond got caught on the rocks by the cave when the stream pump turned on and got stranded up there all day until I noticed. So I will see if they thrive here.
Here you can see the Rosy Red Minnows I added to the whiskey barrel to keep the mosquitoes down (will move them to the pond in fall or to a small aquarium indoors). They scatter when they see you get near so had to take these from a few feet away.
Here is another view of the pond again with the long branch going through it. I also wedged the end of it between 2 rocks so it won't move, but far enough away from liner it shouldn't do any damage.
Has anyone tried having regular parrots feather just floating in their ponds? Thought it might look cool and provide some shade.
