New Plants for Pond

Just a quick post.  We have 2 ponds - a raised one, on the concrete & a traditional in the ground one.  We've had them for about 12 years & this winter it was time to redo the in-ground pond.  So we re-dug, re-lined & ... eventually it will have a new edging around it.  Right now it looks like what it is a pond that is 4/5th's of the way done.  We've learned, let the lining stretch out in the hot sun before we start to cut it & make it look good.  We've maybe learned not to do the rock work in the summer - THAT remains to be seen :)  I've got pics I will share when we finally get it looking good again.

In the meantime it's completely functional with bog plants, waterfall (small), fish & plants.  And it's covered with .... netting.  This time it's the black netting we used to use for the tomatoes.  Yep - birds again - this time BIG FISH EATING BIRDS!  Seems as if birds are my #1 problem doesn't it?

Anywho here are pics of the new pond plants we got.  We can't really do lilies in this one because of the black netting, but these are nice. 

Snow Flake Lily

 This is one of my favorites.  DH says it looks like a weed & grows like one! Nonsense!  It has small lily type leaves & those cute little daisy's - they close & open with the sun.  In a month or so this will be very pretty.  The size of leaves & flowers don't get bigger they just cover more area.  Also, yes that out of focus orange blob at the bottom of the pic is one of the 24 gold fish we have in there.
 

Mosaic

This is DH's favorite.  It's pretty too, but no flowers.  Sorry for the pine needles in there but didn't take the time to get them out of the netting, which you can see & yep - there's no way to get a pic easily without getting in the liner & stones right now.

Mosaic

This is a close up of the plant - nice but no flowers... ;)

The water is green - don't ask!  But that should clear up soon on it's own with a lot of help from our bog plants.  Good news is that since the water isn't clear our fish are harder to see for those darn birds!

Good & Bad

First the good - remember my dead bay tree... it's back!  How totally cool is that?  I was just being lazy in that I didn't pull it out & buy another but now... 

Look at all those new leaves!

And it has them ALL THE WAY DOWN!

The green netting - still holding!

Yes, small but OURS! The ones the raccoon got were about 5-6 oz - this 1 oz....

 Ok for the bad - here's what my acorn squash in Robin was like :(

The acorn squash is on the left side

Obviously rotten...

So I ripped that out & put a summer squash there because the summer squash in Rick now looks like this!

It WAS OK.... just last week got a squash!

Continuing on our "bad tour" this is Meg's spaghetti squash - all are dead except the one on the right.  Not enough water?  Too much DE (there were TONS of ants)- not enough fertilizer???  The pumpkin on the other side of Meg looks the same - dead, & no new leaves.

Got 1 rotten SMALL spaghetti squash out of here :(

 YIKES!  What am I doing wrong?  Sigh - these are experiments - next year will be better.... repeat!  These are experiments - next year will be better.... repeat!

We have done some changes - we have upped the amount of water the plants are getting & I had been doing algae foliar feeding weekly.  Then everything went light green, we changed to something with HIGH nitrogen & that seemed to help.  We have now fed them twice with a 24/8/16 fertilizer & I took pics of before & after.  Really we didn't need the pics - ALL the plants have now taken off & growing & looking soooo much better.  So, was it the lack of water - lack of correct feeding??? Both??  Who knows, who cares - grow baby grow!

SUPER Mockingbird!! Or NOT!

So.... the green netting #2 looks ok & works great for BIRDS.  We think we have bigger problems.  The other morning the ONE tomato that was almost ready to pick was GONE!  GONE!  GONE!  Oh wait - what's that by the pool?

Looks like it would have been good.

Hmmm... something got in & CARRIED a 5 oz big tomato to our pool, & ate HALF of it.  OK guys if this is a bird - I'm never going outside again!  I know the mockingbird was picking on the cherry tomatoes in Kate - I saw him & I know from the past that they will peck at the larger ones, but NOPE they just don't carry them 10 feet away.

So it's most like a raccoon that's getting in there & that is a whole different problem!  Darn!

So went out & put more rocks on the netting & sewed up the back - no more wooden sticks.

Next day - well I'd show you the almost red tomato he got - but... can't find it!  Gone from Amy completely!

I'm now thinking DEF-CON 4 (electrical fencing with razor wire)!  DH (thinking that HE is going to have to be the one to actually DO the work) is thinking there might be another thing or two that we can do before that. 

This is our bait - not red enough to pick YET

So we made some more wire stakes from clothes hangers, put a lot of those to hold down the netting.  Today there is another almost red tomato (see the pic above) .... no, I'm not gonna stay up tonight with a flash light & a ...a... a.. "stick" to see if he shows up.  Let's just see how this goes.