Toad Day 2011

About a year after we installed our watergarden, on an early warm day around mid April, i heard an odd sound that i had never heard before in my suburban garden. Was it a bird? It was a pretty trilling sound, but it seemed to be coming FROM the pond! i soon discovered little frogs or toads creating the sounds. Well, they must be frogs, i thought. Spring Peepers. maybe? Sounded too pretty for toads. A little reseach online and i was very surprised to find out that they were indeed plain old American Toads, and even though i grew up in this area, this was something i had never experienced before! More and more toads began their calling, and i was thrilled! Toads migrated into my yard from the road, up our driveway, right to the water, some already er, "paired up" while hopping to their destination!

A little taste of what we hear in our backyard....

We really had to watch our step for awhile, 'cause they were approaching from every direction!

Oh, no! A two headed toad! i KNEW i shouldn't have dumped that toxic waste into...    - oh, wait, that's not it....

Hmmm..Will this be considered a porn site now? ;-)

That year, the toads appeared in full force all from morning till evening, and the next day it was like they were never there! Except for the many strings of tiny eggs attached to every plant in the pond! Only a few days later, the water was full of THOUSANDS of tadpoles, and a few weeks later, they left the pond. i believe frogs are a little larger before they are done with water, but not toads! i love to see the tiny, tiny, fully formed babies around the yard!

 This has happened every year since, on the first warm day around April 15th (i call them my "Tax Day" toads!) Sometimes they only last one day, sometimes several weeks, depending on the weather. A LOTof it depends on the weather. We often have one or two warm days this time of year, with the next few near freezing! I have already checked the watergarden on days like that, and had to net out the toads that didn't make it to land because they got too cold!

My Garden Interview - Part 3

...A continuation of my hypothetical interview...

***i'm currently reading an older garden book titled, "Gardening From The Heart - Why Gardeners Garden" by Carol Olwell. The reason for this book is interesting, because, as she points out, gardening is hard work,

considered pretty much low grade manual labor, and is rarely lucrative -

so why do we do it? She compiles the story of many gardeners who were interviewed for this book. i am barely past the introduction, but i feel compelled to put into words how i myself came to be a gardener, and why....***

Q: Any garden organizations?

i became involved at that time in the Master Gardener program - the very first year it was offered in my area (1991). It was a wonderful program, and i got to "shmooze" with fellow gardeners! The only downside was that most of my fellow "students" were retired folks - and i was in my thirties! i thought it was a good deal - the fee was $25, for the

literature and instructors (there wasn't anything offered online in THOSE days!), and you agreed to give back so many hours in volunteer time, i believe it was around 20 hours back then. It quickly became a very popular program, and a lot more people became involved with it. Later it was decided that you had to give so many hours each year to

"recertify", which i just did not have time for in the growing season. NOW the fee is up to $175, you have to volunteer 50 hours, and need 10 hrs. of volunteer work plus 6 continuing education hours annually to recertify! Whew! So, even though i have not recertified, i do still call myself a "Master Gardener" anyway - seniority ought to count for

something!

Q: Any funny stories?

We sold our first little house in '97 to a very young couple who were not even in their 20's yet, it was November, but they were very impressed by the gardens. I had taken photos and had a few enlarged to show prospective buyers. Unfortunately, they both had jobs and went to school, and had no clue how much work that was gonna be! i did take starts of my favorite plants to go to the new house with me, but left just about everything.

The following July, i received a phone call from my former neighbor. All she said was, "Oh my God, Nanci, they're tearing out all your plants and throwing them away!" i was there within 10 minutes, on the pretense of visiting said neighbor. The young people weren't QUITE throwing away everything, but threatening to, and i could see why. When i had lived

there, i walked around virtually every day, automatically weeding, deadheading, pruning...they had done none of that. The Hollyhocks were 7 feet tall, the vines had literally absorbed part of the yard, the groundcovers were covering WAY too much ground, my arbor that i painstakingly created from PVC pipe was broken and laying in the vegetable garden space - it looked like an abandoned property! To their credit, the new owners were very considerate and told me i could dig up

everything i wanted to, so i borrowed a shovel from my friend next door and started digging in the 90 degree heat. An hour later, after i had filled the trunk AND back seat of my car, i called my husband and told him to come over with his pickup truck and more tools! When we came home with the plants, i had no idea what i was going to do with them - it was early July, in the middle of a heat wave.These plants were my

BABIES! Now that i had rescued them i was NOT going to lose them! So we shoved them all into our 2 garbage cans filled with water and i spent the next week or so finding spaces for them. Now, planting in weather like that should only be done in emergencies (like this was), but - it CAN be done.Out of about 40 plants, only 2 did not make it, i am proud

to say!

 One more unfortunate thing - about a month after that, I

discovered that the vinyl lattice we had put up all along the fence row was gone - the young couple had taken it down and put it out for the garbage pickup - all five hundred dollars worth of it!! i almost cried over that - wish i had known. BUT, to this day, i really have no idea what i could have used that for at the new house! It was such a waste,

though...

A Spring Garden Stroll

...A garden friend....(who i painted, naturally!)

..An 'artsy" shot!

                                         ...Although i really hate the Cottonwood tree across the street, the "fuzzies" falling, backlit by the sun, are pretty (i guess...)

The variegated Kiwi vine actually is showing its white and pink splashed foliage for the second year in a row!  

First Waterlilies in bloom

We've had a lot of rain this Spring ~ and my Hostas love it!

"Sweet Kate" Tradescandia is one of my favorites. Those colors are almost blinding in bright sun!

Never had a lot of luck with Penstemons, but they're doing great this year!

....And, of course, the sky blue of an Amsonia (If you've gotten any emails from me in the past, "Amsoniared" has been my email name for many years! Hey, 'Amsoniablue' was taken!)

Fishin For A Name..

Baby Skeeter and Godzilla having a conversation..

My first Koi was 2" long, cost a buck and a quarter, and was a pale yellow gold. I named him Godzilla (well, i had to name him something Japanese!), and he lived to be a foot long and bright orange, and would eat from my hand. He was pretty much a "common" variety, but i thought he was awesome! Koi can live for many years - unfortunately, Godzilla only made it to 6. When he died three winters ago, i was actually very saddened (yes, i know it's just a fish! So?), and did not have luck with Koi for quite awhile after him. I did get 3 small Koi two years ago, and one of those three became another favorite. He's white with black "cow" spots, and is very noticeable (hopefully the herons won't notice, though!).

But i can't think of a good name for him (her?)!

i'm hoping i can rely on my blog group to help me out! What do you think? (i do have an orange and black Koi, also - if there are two good names, he'll get one too! This is actually dangerous - you know what the "rule" of pondkeeping is - the first Koi to die young are either the most expensive, the biggest, or the ones you have named!)LOL

But I'll risk it! Please help! He's been nameless long enough!

Spring Thoughts..

I love Spring! LOVEIT LOVEITLOVEITLOVEITLOVEITLOVEITLOVEIT!!!!

My little heart is overflowing with it! If this feeling could be bottled or made into a drug, i'd be an addict! There are many people i know who really don't notice the seasons....how can they ignore the smell of new growing plants and flowers, and the chorus of birds and toads early in the morning at sunrise? How do they not see the sun, the blue sky, the trees in flower, or the new bright green leaves? And who would want to miss it?

Even on a COLD Spring day (and we get plenty of those!), it's still beautiful and a LOT better than a Winter day! My only complaint is that it doesn't last long enough, and, if we do get a really WARM spell, all the blossoms quickly unfurl, but fade just as fast, making everything that much more fleeting.

Yesterday was one of those warm days, though - the air temperature was well over 80 degrees (F), and i even managed to get into the pond for the first time to do some maintenance! The water wasn't 80 degrees though! No problem - once my legs went numb, it didn't feel too bad at all! LOL



i really have to get some of those shoulder high gloves for working in the pond - no other kind would work, and if i'm messing with water lily roots,it takes me days to wear the purple stains off my hands.

WARNING: Lily roots don't LOOK purple, but they definitely dye your skin! Another warning - they stink! They smell rotten - i have had people send lilies to me in swaps and apologised to me because they couldn't wash them well enough to get the smell off!


i usually get in wearing shorts and deck shoes, which work pretty well to keep me from slipping, (If i have to get in there and it's REAL chilly, i do have hip boots) but still, we have a rule at our house - no getting into the watergarden without supervision - yes, it's only 24" deep; but one slip and hit of your head on any of the rocks in and around it, and you'll be one of those "freak accident" deaths in the local newspaper! How embarrassing would THAT headline be?
"WOMAN DROWNS IN 2 FOOT DEEP WATERGARDEN"

The Watergarden Bug

(Note: This happened in 1999 or 2000, so these are all old film photos from back then. i'm happy that i'm finally putting these "out there" - i kept misplacing the actual hard copies!)

No, not a water strider or mosquito - i mean the thing you get in your MIND that you HAVE to have a body of water in your yard! i got the bug as hubby and i were at the open house the Realtor was having at what WOULD become our current residence. The Realtor was pointing out what a large yard there was and telling us that there was plenty of room for a swimming pool. i thought to myself,***Pool? Heck, no! i want me a POND! With fish and plants and frogs and a waterfall and a stream and snails and stuff!"***

And so, in the spring following our moving in, i started digging. OK, i didn't go REAL crazy - just bought a 60 gallon (227 Liter) hard plastic preformed thing, but it was enough to start. i have heard that you should always go big at first, to prevent having to replace it with a bigger one later ('cause all us "ponders" always do!), but i disagree. i was glad i started - and made my mistakes - with a smaller pond (NOTE: i AM referring to watergardens - 'pond' is just less to type!). This one had no filtration system (except plants and fish ~ the rock "waterfall" was just for looks, too), and it was fine - even had more fish in the Fall than what i started with, if you know what i mean..;o)
.
After a couple of years, we did want to expand, so we went to a local watergarden shop in our area that gave free classes on how to install ponds, and just about got frightened out of the whole idea! This place really went all out (and of course, wanted the class participants to purchase the supplies from THEM), and if we followed all of their advice it would have cost us a small fortune!

So i started researching the whole pond building thing myself and discovered that, while watergardens CAN be a lot of work and expense, they really don't have to be! More about THAT later...back to pond building...

Here's a photo (below) of our initial sod removal in the shape of the new pond - quite a size difference! The only thing i wish we'd done differently was to keep the front of the pond where it was and not dig another foot closer to the sunroom - it's a little tight there now.

...So here it is a couple of days into the digging (below)- note the chairs in the shade - we had, in our usual bad timing, picked the only week that YEAR that was in the mid 90's (F)...ALL week!

More confusing info you'll find is the "to shelf or not to shelf" debate. There are good reasons for both configurations, but i can tell you that i am glad we have shelves - first of all, i would have no idea how to get INTO the pond without a step of some sort - it gets extremely slippery in there within days. Second, the shelves are very convenient for marginal and bog plants - in fact, i wish we had made them shallower than they are.

And last but most important, we got tired of shoveling and trying to find places to put the soil!!! After building up the waterfall area, the whole margin of the pond, AND two planting hills behind it in the yard, we were fed up with the whole digging thing! We finally looked at each other, said "Screw it!", and called it done!

The stick is for checking the level of the sides, and that large bucket is actually the biological filter we had yet to install.

The rubber liner going in. TIPS- don't let this stuff lay on your grass - it'll be killed in a hurry (no, we didn't do that - we were warned ahead of time!). Also, we didn't put any cushion or underlayment underneath - didn't have many roots or rocks around, and it hasn't been an issue - but i would still recommend it, because now, any time we lose water, i immediately worry that it's a stick or root cutting thru the bottom of the liner! So just for your peace of mind, put underlayment if you can. i know there are liners that have the underlayment already attached - wow, i cringe to think about how heavy THAT would be!

This is me in the pond - i was pretty overweight then, so this is all i'm showing you!

(To this day, when someone asks my spousal unit what he dug the pond with, he says, "With my wife!"). Sigh....

While we were lucky and had lots of pretty fieldstone for the taking from hubby's grandparents' farm, it was rounded and not good to use for the first layer. Here was our Big mistake, though  - my idea was to use cheap concrete patio blocks for the perimeter. Found out later that they were soaking in the water and leaching LIME into it, throwing the PH completely off kilter! We had to invest in a load of shale to replace it all, which was NOT fun! But anyway, that's how we started.

Couldn't wait to put plants in, even before it was finished!

Here's my guy, working on the patio blocks and waterfall. We did not mortar any rocks together, still not sure if that was a good thing or not. They do shift during the winter, but they were much easier to move when we had to get to the back of the filter when we had a leak. So,  there's good points and bad points to not mortaring, too.

Plants going around the outside. Once again, i saved a lot of money because i had so many plants in the gardens. i just divided or transplanted them and only purchased a couple of "special" plants.

From the other side

Before mulch...

...And after mulch!

And here ~ A year later...!

The End  LOL

Fish Favorites

Pet shop people don't like me. At least if they've seen me before. i'm the one who goes into the fish department, stops at the "10 cent Feeder Fish" tank (the 30 gallon tank filled with 500 1/2 inch goldfish), and wants to pick out ten "pretty" ones! Yes, they always warn you that those fish may be inbred and/or diseased, and there's a chance they could affect the health of your current fish population - which is very true! - if you just toss them in immediately. So i definitely recommend putting the new purchases (even if they were NOT feeders) in a quarantine tank for a week or two first. i don't always do that, but that's my risk to take! Most of the time, the store employees are very polite about it and actually chase down and net the fish i pick out. NOTE: don't come in on a Saturday or at a busy time and expect them to take that time - be considerate :o)

Some of the cheapie fish in the pond - the little ones in the photo above are Rosy Red minnows

Seriously, though, my feeders have done very well. Oh a few do die right away, but that's why they cost practically nothing! But i try to pick out color mixes, longer fins/tails (Comets), things like that, and they breed with the others and really create a colorful bunch of fish. In fact, around here, that's the only way i can find Comets anymore.

These two (the bigger ones) are Koi - they cost a little more than the feeders! This is the first time this year that they made an appearance. i had a third, but haven't seen him yet - he may have not made it thru the winter...

Another Snowfall...

                                  So we had a snowfall. 3- 4 inches, tops. Can i complain? Not hardly,considering this same weather system dumped about three FEET in the Washington DC area yesterday!                                     

 It was pretty windy, too, so the snow cover was very smooth and pristine. i took these pics of the garden this morning, before any of our snow shoveling, footprints, or the animals spoiled the surface.

It's hard to imagine this all leafed out and green......but here's a reminder!

Life And Death In The Garden

i think something (somebody) fell into my pond yesterday. We have a pond de icer to keep a hole open in the ice in winter - i had it turned off, but had a very thin layer if ice a foot around it because it was turned on the day before. Came home from work, it had snowed and there was a light layer of snow laying on the thin ice. Curiously, though, there was a small hole in the ice, nowhere near the heater, and the snow layer around it was dark, like it had gotten wet. Although it was quite subtle, i had never seen anything resembling that before, and i'm really concerned that a bunny or squirrel had fallen through! Damn! i really hate animals dying in my yard, especially if it's kind of my fault! Plus, most of the rest of the pond has a thick, snow covered layer of ice on it- i'm never gonna be able to find anything if something DID fall in - so a dead body in there certainly will be dangerous for the fish when it decomposes. i could be wrong, though, and will have to keep my fingers crossed that nothing really happened.

These pics are a few weeks old - before the snow fell!

A couple of years ago, we were having trouble with raccoons spending too much time around the pond, and i set up little mousetraps here and there to discourage their new hobby. I had also put out little birdhouses in our trees in the Spring, so a few baby Wrens had just hatched nearby, and i 'd enjoy watching both parents feeding them. All was well for a while, then one day, i found one of the adult Wrens dead  in one of the traps! It's leg had been caught... i was very upset }:(  

Not knowledgeable enough to tell male from female, i of course assumed that it was Mom, which made me feel even worse! I got rid of the traps.

And yes, i find a fledgling bird in the water on occasion - although i never seem to find it before it's too late! Now, my cat Skeeter sometimes catches a Mole in the yard and, being a normally indoor cat, will not eat it, but will play with it to death. That's the one case in which Mom (me) turns the other cheek and lets Skeeter have her fun-saves my yard from being destroyed! (Although i still feel bad....)

Make A Simple And Quick Pond Plant Pruner (AKA- Good Old Polish Ingenuity) :o)

So the weather got cold sooner than you expected (or hoped), and you still need to get those Waterlily and Lotus leaves trimmed off before they rot in the pond. i don't know about you, but i don't want to get into 50 degree water for maintenance! SO, i use the handy-dandy pond plant trimmer i 'invented'! i use this thing all season and thought i'd share the instructions. 

Here is what you'll need:

• 
  
  One of those cheap plastic envelope openers you can find at office supply stores or that a lot of places give away (at least around here!)
  
  
  
• 
  
  A long sturdy stick (mine is bamboo, about 5-6 ft long, enough to reach at least halfway across the watergarden) with 2 or 3 notches cut into the end
  
  
  
• 
  
  Cable ties or 'zip' ties, the kind that lock securely. i like to use a dark color - it seems to be more resistant to the UV rays that make them brittle
  
  
  
• 
  
  A file or tool that will cut notches into the plastic letter opener - i use a pair of wire cutters, but whatever works for you
  
  
  

Cut 2 or 3 notches into the plastic - you just want to make sure it's secure and doesn't pull off and fall into the water (sharp plastic with RAZOR BLADE attached- get it? Very bad around pond liners!) i also cut off the little plastic guide piece that was near the blade - you want that a little wider by the blade

Attach the letter opener with the cable ties, making sure that you have it secured in shown direction, and that the ties fit in to the notches on both the opener AND the stick. Tighten the ties as much as you can, so that the opener feels secure and doesn't move.

Cut off the excess ends of the cable ties. 

If you can't picture how it works, here's a pic of how the cutter is placed around a lily stem.  

After you grab the stem with it, give it a sharp tug! Try to get as much stem as possible along with it. You'll get better with practice

i have become pretty good at using the flat side of the cutter to lift the leaves out, but you could just net them out as well.

One of these usually lasts me a season, and the cable ties have to be replaced periodically- check them before each use so you're sure they won't break when you're using it

Here i am using it to cut a Lotus stem (can you tell i'm really behind at my pond maintenance, too?) Yuck! Look at those skanky leaves!

Here is another 'invention'. This one works well to pull string algae out of the pond. Same principle - different tool - a toilet brush!