Pileated Woodpecker

I thought for a minute we were being invaded by pterodactyls or some strange space creature. The screaming noises from the woods was so loud, it would wake a body up from a dead sleep.  

But it wasn't anything all that strange, although when sighted they were beautiful.  

We have at least one mating pair of pileated woodpeckers and he was making a big play for the affections of the female.  They darted from tree to tree, with her coyly, if something that big can be coy, evading his advances.  What a dance they did.  Wish it had been light enough to do a video. 

I have a photo that I took in another house down in Louisiana where they lived, so that will have to do.  Pictures of this pair as soon as I can get them.

The time is right to build a pond.  Get that digging done before it gets too hot. If you want step by step directions on building and maintenance, my book is what you need.

Pond building help

And don't forget to join us at pondlady.com with your questions.

pondlady.com

Silence

Most of the time, where we live…all of us, we are conditioned to some ambient noise. It can be road noise, air conditioner noise, or TV noise. We are startled when the electricity goes off for some reason and all the noise stops.   Even street lights are dark, clocks are stopped, even all the blinking lights we are so used to have gone out.  We are in total silence.

Imagine living far away from any noise at all.  Imagine that the refrigerator or water heater coming on occasionally is all you hear. The only noises aside from that are the birds declaring territory or searching for a mate. The noise from the creek or the noise from rain on the roof can be deafening, but wonderful.  Deer clatter through the woods when they are spooked by something.  

And the whipoorwills wake us up in the morning.

We live in such a place.  It is divine.

The road to our house

My pond how-to book is number one in Amazon's landscape category.  It covers everything from how to build a pond to strange and weird questions I have been asked through the years. Don't miss the sale. The price will soon rise.  Click here to buy it at a buck.  

Click here to see it.

And for more pond information, my free website filled with pond experts is ready for any pond questions you have or information your wish to share.
pondlady.com

The iPhone as Garden Camera

Playing with the iPhone in the Louisiana garden just before leaving for Arkansas.

Spring has arrived in most of the country.  It's time to build your garden pond now.  Build it with help from my book and have a care free pond.

You can get A Practical Guide to Building and Maintaining a Pond

Here

If you need  help right now with your pond, join us at pondlady.com

where we have experts from all over to answer your pond questions.

Arkansas!

We drove to our Arkansas house yesterday. It was a long and difficult drive towing the car with a defective Uhaul car dolly.  We managed to repair it so the car stayed put. 

There's a car load of stuff in both the truck and the car to be unloaded into the house and shed.  And it's getting light enough outside to get out there and start unloading.

Slowly Arkansas is becoming home and Louisiana is being left behind!

It's just getting light now. Soon the sunrise will be hitting the now green mountain.  I left here in late February when the mountain was still turned gold by the sunrise.

But this is what greeted me this morning. Who wouldn't want these guys as neighbors. Wonder if I will feel so benevolent toward them when I have to fence off an area so I can have a garden?

Just so you don't forget, I wrote a book on ponds and it's on sale at under a dollar just for a day or so more.  Get it before it's back to $10.00 again.  

Click here to have a look:

Jan's  book

And for an interactive pond forum, visit us at pondlady.com

We have a good time there.

Pond Liners

Liner in an above ground pond

The most important part of your pond is the thing that holds the water in--the liner. The sun is its worst enemy. It will destroy a liner faster than any other natural enemy. Cover every piece of your liner with finishing material, whether it is rocks, bricks or other material. While I am on the subject, use liners made for pond use. Buy your liner from a store specializing in Aquatic Garden supplies.


Be sure it is at least 40 mils thick and is butyl rubber.  They are heavy and can be difficult to move, but they have at least a 20 year warranty and that's important.  


BTW, do not put rocks on the bottom of your pond. They do nothing at all and in a week or so, you can't see them. When it comes time to clean out your pond, you have to remove hundreds or thousands of rocks.  And then find a place to put them because you certainly don't want them back in your pond.


For lots more pond information, visit us at pondlady.com 
We have experts in all things pond who visit there and will answer your questions.  Show us photos of your pond so we can ooh and aah.


My pond book is still on the best seller list.  Buy it by clicking on the graphic in the top right of this page.  It is on sale now, but the price is going up in the next few days.  Act now.

Petunias and Irises

My front garden is making neighbors stop and look.  Every morning, before dawn, I sit on the front porch and just stare, wondering what has budded up and will bloom when the sun rises.  

What makes us happier than flowers in the garden?

We plant petunias in the fall down here in New Orleans.  I usually put them in in November when the temps are beginning to cool a bit.  The petunias grow strong roots during the winter and spring into bloom in the spring.  Like now.  When they are at their spring best, the irises join them.

My pond book was published in February 2012 and remains on Amazon's best seller list - landscape.  In it, I not only show how to build ponds and waterfalls, but answer questions I have gotten over the years.  For a few days, you can get it for $.99, then the price is going to increase. You can get it here

Look for this as the cover:

And since you are starting spring prep for your pond, join us at Pondlady.com where we solve pond problems and see others' designs.

Bluebird

We have a bluebird nesting box at the end of our driveway.  Every spring a pair of them arrive at the box and settle in.  I have no idea if it is the same pair or not, but I want to believe that it is.  Probably isn't tho.  Oh well, we welcome them each spring.  

Our garden, in fact the entire acre we live on, is organic. No pesticide has ever touched it in the 7 years we have lived here. I think that accounts for the amazing variety of wildlife that lives here. This morning, I saw red headed woodpeckers along with bluejays checking out food possibilities on the ground.  And hummers were investigating hydrangeas and daylilies. I am never fast enough to get a good hummer shot.

Don't forget to buy my pond how-to Book . The 99 cent sale is ending in a couple of days.

http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Building-Caring-ebook/dp/B00785EXXA/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329153290&sr=1-2 

And at my website, find experts in all phases of pond building and maintenance.  We have fun with our pond stories.

10 Essential Pond Building Tips

Full sun. Did I let it get overgrown?  Ya think?

But on to the ten rules to follow that make pond keeping easy.

• • You must have one bunch of anacharis (underwater grass) per square foot of water surface area. This serves as a natural filter and as food for the fish. It grows faster than the fish can eat it.
• • 50 - 60% of the surface of the water must be shaded with floating plants. Water lilies are great, as are water hyacinths, water lettuce or water poppies. Just be sure to compost them as they multiply and not allow them loose in a natural waterway.
• • You must have fish to complete the balanced ecosystem. I recommend common goldfish. Do not put Koi in your pond unless you have built a koi pond. They will eat all of your plants.
• • Do not feed your fish. They will become too big for the pond and upset the ecosystem. You will have an overpopulation problem and all of your fish will die.
• • Put in one linear foot of fish for each 25 square feet of pond surface area. If you have 100 square feet of pond, you may have 4 foot long fish, 8 six inch fish or 16 three inch fish and so on.
• • Do not allow turtles, crawfish, alligators, ducks, geese, dogs, raccoons, possums, muskrats, nutria or your children to swim in your pond.
• • Do not use chemicals!!! EVER! Add a dechlorinator when you first fill the pond and then when you add more than 10% water afterwards.
• • Do not worry about pH. It will take care of itself.
• • Remove any dead or decaying vegetation regularly so that ammonia does not build up and foul your pond.
• • Relax. Your pond will generally take care of itself. I recommend benevolent neglect as the best approach to pondkeeping.

Do not even try to seam large pieces of butyl rubber liner together at home. It won't work. If you need an extra large piece, the factory will seam it for you, usually for free or very little money.

Read this and 200 pages more of great pond building and keeping advice in my new book "The Practical Guide to Building and Maintaining your Pond."  Get it from Amazon

For more info, pond questions, photos, ideas, problem solving, visit us at pondlady.com

Thanks for visiting.

PIckerel Rush

PIckerel plants were plentiful in the Nature Wildlife Center's trail in Mandeville, LA last weekend.  It's another shoreline plant that loves to have its feet in a few inches of water. Not only is is pretty during it's spring blooming season, but fish love to hide in it and bees and other beneficial bugs love its nectar. Spreading by rhizomes, it stabilizes shorelines. 

If you don't keep it contained in a pot in your pond, it can be invasive as most aquatic plants are.

It is a soft plant, so when you are potting it up or putting the pot in your pond,   be careful not to break the leaves.  The soft blue flowers will put on a show for you in the spring.

I also feature pond plants in my pond how-to new book available here: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Building-Caring-ebook/dp/B00785EXXA/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329153290&sr=1-2 It's dropped to number two on Amazon.com in Landscaping this morning. C'mon people. Buy the book and keep me in first place. It's only a buck. So join us at http://www.pondlady.com and share your pond stories with us. Thanks for dropping by for a visit this morning

Lizard's Tail, a Pond Plant

We took a walk along the Northshore Nature Center trail near Mandeville, La over the weekend.  I thought Louisiana irises would be in full bloom, but didn't see one.  I did see Lizard's Tail in bloom tho. 

Lizard's Tail grow in the water in the shallower parts of the swamp where the water is maybe 4" deep or less.  You will usually find it at the edges of ponds or marshes.

Of course, the Lizard's Tail rush gets its name from its bloom.  It grows from the end of a 6 inche stalk and droops into a tail about 3 inches long.  The leaf is heart shaped and about 5 inches long. 

It spreads using rhizomes that grow sideways under the water or the mud and pretty soon, you have Lizard's Tail everywhere. If you are going to have them in your pond, keep them in a pot.

I also feature pond plants in my new book available here: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Building-Caring-ebook/dp/B00785EXXA/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329153290&sr=1-2 It's number one on Amazon.com in Landscaping this morning. Yippee. So join us at http://www.pondlady.com and share your pond stories with us. Thanks for dropping by for a visit this morning

No More Stinky Pond Goo

POST FROM PONDLADY.COM

I just finished cleaning out one of my ponds and for the first time ever there was no stinky gunk or dead critters at the bottom! 

I am attributing this good fortune to the advice received at pondlady.com about using an aerator during the winter months when the pump is taking a sabbatical. I was really happy NOT to find any dead frogs or fish and no nasty smell meant I could stick my hands in for those last few bits and bobs on the bottom. I even found two very large tadpole-looking critters even though there was no evidence of eggs or other little tadpoles. Not sure how they got there! 

The only sad thing is that the one large fish that was a few years old disappeared. I can only guess that nature did what nature does and either a raccoon or big bird got her.  She left behind 4 offspring... 

I just have one more pond to clean out. Unfortunately the Microbe Lift PL I ordered arrived empty - it burst en route and I feel bad about the packages that it leaked onto - that smell is really awful!

REPLY AT PONDLADY.COM Oh dear, MicrobeLift stinks. Like rotten eggs. They actually brag that if a product does not stink like theirs, it doesn't work. I have found that to be true.  Glad your pond clean out was easier.  Those tadpole critters could have arrived on birds' feet or perhaps some indiscreet frogs had a rendezvous in your pond when you were not looking. My website is full of people who are experienced pondkeepers.  They share their expertise willingly. We have lots of fun there talking about ponds.  Get great design ideas from photos. I also feature pond questions and answers in my new book available here: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Building-Caring-ebook/dp/B00785EXXA/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329153290&sr=1-2 It's number one in Landscaping this morning. Yippee. So join us at http://www.pondlady.com and share your pond stories with us.

Tidbits from my website, pondlady.com

I have decided to feature a post from my website at http://www.pondlady.com today.  

Most of you who read this blog have a pond, but don't necessarily read the pond info on my website.  The folks who interact at pondlady.com are from all over, usually have ponds or want one and freely share what they have learned or ask what they want to know.  It's a great way to learn how to solve a pond problem, to share photos of your masterpiece or to tell us how you overcame your pond problem.  

The following post showed up this morning, complete with photos of the beautiful, but hungry pond visitor.

From the poster:

I'm in Tennessee this week visiting my brother. While I've been gone, the pump in the pond went bad and my wife had to install my smaller backup. After having just talked about not having predators visit my pond, my wife sent these pictures of a visitor that showed up today. This is a Little Green Heron, about 17 inches tall, so it can't wade in my pond to get fish. It can, however, dive into deep water in an attempt to get fish, but must do so from a high perch and it is often not successful. I could use some culling of the fish from the pond, but I don't want this guy getting used to coming to my yard for his meals. I wonder what green heron tastes like?

And my answer:

He is beautiful! Instead of saying 'Law of the jungle', maybe, we need to start saying 'Law of the pond.'

There's an ugly thing called 'gator guard'. It works. I think Bird X makes it. Here it is

http://www.bird-x.com/gator-guard-products-49.php?page_id=61

Wow, it has gotten expensive in the past 2 or 3 years. Ouch! But it does work here in Louisiana. Maybe that's cuz we have gators.

Putting ceramic roof tiles in the bottom of the pond so the fish can hide under them can work. I have even put a couple thick rocks with a flat rock on top to make a little bridge in the bottom of the pond so the fish can hide beneath it.

Did you know I wrote a book about ponds?

You can buy my Pond how-to book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping. 

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.

Our Barred Owl

Where we live, just north of Lake Pontchartrain and New Orleans, we have owls.  I can hear momma owl every morning. Or maybe it's papa owl looking for his girl friend.  Perhaps it's momma celebrating a successful night of hunting and reducing our mice, rat and snake population here in the rural part of the world we live in.  

Occasionally, momma cannot find enough to feed her babies, so she has to hunt during the day. At those times, we can see her, not just hear her whoooo, whooos through the bedroom window just before dawn.

And see her we did.  She is a barred owl. Her nest is in a snag across the street.  We cannot see the nest, just as she wishes, but it's a perfect spot for an owl nest and she knows it.

Here she is on a tree branch mid afternoon. She is being greatly annoyed by a local mockingbird who claims that part of the world as his.  In fact, he claims this entire acre as his. As you can see, she is deliberately avoiding him and looking for food in our ditch or our garden so she can bring it back to her nest.

That flutter of feathers at the lower left is the pesky mockingbird trying to make our owl get off his branch.  He failed.

Did you know I wrote a book about ponds?

You can buy my Pond how-to book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping. 

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.

Springtime Delights

Here in the South of the US, specifically just north of the Great Free State of New Orleans, there is not a day that we cannot garden. That's not to say we do garden every day, but we could if we wished. 

So in November in between getting the cold weather veggies in, we get the petunias, pansies and snapdragons in the ground. We get some color during the winter, but in the spring, we have displays that stop passing cars.  

By the way, we used to put winter color in in October, but about 10 years ago, I had to start planting them in November because it was too hot in October and they would melt from the heat.

So without any more delay, here's what we see in our delicious springtime garden.

It's worth a little more work in November, isn't it?

You can buy my Pond how-to book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping. 

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.

How to Build a Waterfall

Sometimes when the day is busy or the mind is on vacation, I find it a good idea to rerun a post that was widely read the first time.
Today is one of those days.
So here is a post on how to build a waterfall from way back in 2006.

Building a waterfall is either simple or difficult depending on the point of view of the builder. We want them to look natural, like they just started happening in the rocks of our gardens, never mind that we had to buy the rocks because we live where no rock has ever been found like New Orleans where I live.

The easiest way to have a waterfall is to use a weir. A weir is a box that collect water that the pump has pumped into it. One side of the box is lower than the rest and has a lip on it so water will go over it.
These can be effective when building a waterfall. Simply elevate them above your pond, usually positioning them level on the dirt you have dug out to make your pond, put tubing from your pump in the weir.When the weir fills up, a sheet of water will fall over the weir and into your pond. You can hide the weir with rocks so no one can see the plastic box. Also, if you have a biofilter, you can put it in the weir. As an aside, if you do have a biofilter and use lava rocks in it, put them in several mesh bags, not just one. It takes several strong men to lift just one bag out, so use at least three. I usually float some hyacinths or other floating plants in the weir to further camouflage the plastic box.


Another, and my favorite way, is to start with a semi level surface, slightly raised in the back, starting at the same level as your pond. From there build the waterfall using the same kind of rocks you used in your pond construction. Start with large, flat and thin rocks. You can’t build a waterfall with round rocks or little ones either. After you put the first large rock down, run a hose over it to make sure the water flows into the pond. If it does not, shim up the back of the rock. If you don’t start on a slight angle, water will fall off the back and drain your pond dry in a few hours. Next, stack two or three thick and chunky rocks on each end of the bottom rock. Those rocks can be as much as 5 or 6” thick. Make sure they are flat on two sides because you are going to build the rest of your waterfall on top of them. If you have two large flat rocks on the ground level, you need more chunky rocks to rest the second level on. 

Next place the second level of flat, thin and large rocks on the chunks. Again run water over to make sure the flow is going in the pond and not over the edge. Continue making levels until you like your waterfall or run out of rocks. Make your waterfall as wide as you wish, remembering that you may need more than one pump.

I have found that the easiest way for me to build the falls is for me to be in the water and have a couple of strong helpers placing rocks for me. 

The back of the falls is equally important. Shimming must be done to keep the angle toward the pond and proper placement of rocks is most important to ensure stability of the falls. 

You can buy my Pond how-to book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping. 

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.

Blog Traffic Secrets

If you are a blogger, you already know what I am gonna talk about, so you can go back to knoshing on potato chips and drinking beer now.  Enjoy.

If you are not a blogger, you don't realize that we have a page on our blog that you, the reader, can't see.  Once we click there, we can see how many folks have read yesterday's post or last week's post, for that matter. We can see what topics are the most popular. We can also see where you came from and how you got here. 

Most bloggers want lots of traffic because, well, just because that's how we are.  We want you to read what we write.  And lots of bloggers have ads on their blogs or write product reviews for money.  There are bloggers who have built their blogs into $150,000.00 a year businesses.  I am not one of them.  

So when we are writing our posts, we try to include words that we know people look for. Sex is a great word to entice people to come over for a read.  Drugs, especially cocaine is another one.  I get lots of traffic these days from sex toy companies.  Why? Damned if I know, but I do.  Uncut cocaine is probably the best set of words to use.  Again, why?  Is the population of the world so interested in uncut cocaine that they enter those words in Google so often, they end up at this tiny blog written by a little old gray haired lady. What gives with the uncut cocaine, people?  Does it go well with sex toys?  I guess you would have to ask an in-the-news celebrity with more money than sense about that.  Or the US Secret Service.  Wait, they are in trouble for hiring prostitutes, not using drugs or sex toys.

Wonder what kind of traffic this post will garner?  I do know that whoever comes here because of an Google search for sex toys or cocaine is going to be extremely disappointed. I will keep you posted.  

You can buy my Pond how-to book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping. 

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.

Cleaning your Pond

I know, I know, pond cleaning is disgusting. The clothes you wear to clean it out have to be treated as hazardous waste when you are finished.  However, it's spring and if you didn't clean your pond last fall, you gotta do it now.  It's full of rotting debris from leaves, the fish poop is at least an inch deep and the weather is getting warm so the pond doesn't smell all that great either.  So take a deep breath, put your boots and gloves on and clean that pond.  Here's an article I wrote that tells you what to do and how to do it to make it a little easier.

How to Clean your Pond

You can buy my Pond how-to book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping. 

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.

Gay Groceries

I just put a check in the mail to pay my yearly income taxes. Most folks get money back, but self employed folks have to pay. A lot.  I also went grocery shopping yesterday and both of us had a look at our veggie garden to check for critters that perhaps should not be there.  All is well.

Why do I mention these things?  Everybody does them, right? They sure do.  Do I do them differently? Nope. But I put the words here, didn't I?

I paid for my government to continue passing laws keeping me from enjoying the same civil rights that the most of the rest of the country already takes for granted. The rest of the country seems to think that those civil rights belong to them and they can choose to keep them from us. That us is my partner and me.  Two women who have enjoyed a partnership for years and years.  We cannot marry, we do cannot get any social security payments that are attached to the other as most married partners do. We are denied those same rights that you have and never even think about not having them. Think about that next time you, in or out of your church are shouting gay slurs or demanding that the 'perverts' should be jailed or worse. That we destroy your families or marriages and corrupt your children.  You seem to be doing a good job of that without any help from us.

I find it strange that although denied basic civil rights, I must still send a check to the IRS.  It's not a gay check, just a check. I didn't shop for gay groceries,  just groceries.  I don't have a gay vegetable garden, just a garden. I don't drive a gay car or own a gay house. I don't have a gay dog or mow gay grass.  

Does anyone else wonder about these same things?  Probably not. You enjoy your privileged status….and just keep hating.  Does it make you feel better?

You say you learned to hate us from your parents when you were a child.  Have you learned anything since then?

I wrote a book about building and caring for your pond. It's not a gay book.

You can buy my Pond how-to book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping. 

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.

Almost Water Lily Season

Those of us who live in subtropical climes and New Orleans certainly counts as one, are now looking forward to our first tropical water lily blooms.  Usually in May the first leaves reach the surface and we can start fertilizing.  I use Aquatabs, one per gallon of pot size. Yeah, I know there are special water lily pots that look something like dish drainers, but I'm lazy and still use the 3 gallon pots I transplanted them into years ago.  I put them on the bottom of my 18" deep pond and leave them there year round.

Those of you who have hardy water lilies don't have to worry about them surviving the winter, but most of use love the tropical ones, so we sink them to the bottom of the pond and hope they survive the cold. Most of the time they do, especially this past winter which really wasn't winter at all.  And for those of us who are water lily addicts, the new ones will be on sale in a week or so. Be still my heart!

So I wait for the opportunity to take these sorts of photos again this summer. And maybe get a  better photo.

You can buy my Pond how-to book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping.  Yippee.

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.

Incipients

Is incipients a word? Well, it is now because I have just used it.  My recently planted veggies are budding and flowering. And that means we have incipient food coming from the plants.

We always know that spring is really here when our veggies are up, green and budding.  We know that there will be fresh tomatoes, green beans, squash, okra, cucumbers and eggplants soon.  And when the beans are finished, I yank them out and put them in the compost heap.  The empty spot gets filled with more eggplants cuz they are a staple in a vegan's diet. At least this vegan.

I love the flowers on veggies. Most are yellow because that is the most common flower color, but the eggplant flowers are light purple just like the veggie itself. I am growing green ones, white ones, fingerlings, but the flowers are still that light purple.

Our New Orleans weather has been absolutely glorious. It's been a long spring, warmer than usual, but we take what we can get in this subtropical climate.

Green Beans

Tomatoes

Eggplants

You can buy my Pond how-to book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping.  Yippee.

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.