Preparing for Spring

Spring has arrived here in New Orleans, where I live, so it's time for spring pond care. I know you folks who live in northern climes are still feeling some nip in the air, so you will wait a bit before prepping your pond for spring. 

But for us, we are excited that our fish are swimming around, our plants are poking green shoots above the water, our waterfalls have come back to life and we are relaxing out of doors in our wonderful spring weather. 

We cannot relax just yet, because our temperatures are still fluctuating as are yours. Just because you have a 70 degree F day does not mean that you can start feeding koi. They must not be fed until the pond water temperatures are stable at 55 degrees F at night. Remember, if you have a balanced pond and no koi, you never feed your fish. 

Things to Have 

Check your filter. It is clean? Even if it looks clean, it probably is not. So give it a good cleaning. If you have a biofilter, give it a kick start with a bacteria/enzyme product like Microbe-Lift PL to ensure a good bacteria colony starts to grow in your biofilter. 

Check your pump. Clean it up. Check all your hoses for leaks or cracks. Nothing is worse than coming home from work and finding your pond dry because a hose leaked and your pond is nearly dry. 

Make sure you have a dechlorinator on hand. You will need it. I know you think you won’t, but you will. Here’s what happens. You decide to top off the pump. The phone rings. Then you realize you need to get to the bank before it closes, so you dash out. While you are out, you decide to take care of a few more errands. You return home a couple of hours later. Oops!! Your yard is flooded and your fish are lying motionless at the bottom of the pond. Add dechlor immediately. Start the pump is it was not already running. 90% of the time, you can save your fish. 

Keep Microbe-LIft PL on hand for blanketweed or string algae growth. With warmer temperatures, algae begins to grow quickly. 

Check your nets. Are they useable? It might be time to replace them. 

It never hurts to have a few hose clamps in your pond drawer or on your pond shelf. Those rascally things always break when you don’t have any spares. 

Do you have spare pumps? If so, check them now to see if they still work. Often when a pump is stored out of water, seals can break, especially if the pump was in a freezing garage or shed. 

Things to Do 

If you have chemicals, fertilizers or fish food left from last summer, throw it away. Most likely they have lost potency or have become rotten. It’s best just to dispose of them and start over. 

If you have leaves or other debris in your pond, remove it now. As the water heats up, the debris begins to decompose, fouls your water and fish can die quickly. Spring is a great time to totally clean out your pond. Remove all water, all equipment, scrub the sides lightly (no soap), rinse, use a wet vac to get the last of the dirty water out and then replace everything. Your fish and plants will thank you for it. 

Check your fish for any illnesses or wounds. If your fish are still a big sluggish, leave them alone. They are not fully awake until the water temperatures are consistently above 55 degrees F. 

Within a couple of weeks after your water reaches 55 degrees F, you can start exchanging 10% of your water weekly. Pond water is the best fertilizer in the world. Pump it into your veggie or flower beds. Water exchanges keep nitrites from building up and keep your fish alive, healthy and happy. 

Check your water plants. Spring is a great time for dividing and repotting. Remember, do not use any soil full of organic matter. I have had my best luck with water plants by potting them up in sand. I do not fertilize any pond plants except water lilies. They grow fast enough utilizing fish waste without having those plants leaping out of their pots by adding extra fertilizer. If you have extra plants after you have divided them, you can give them to a neighbor or friend. Remember, though, that many water plants can grow in low, damp spaces in your garden. So if you have taro, umbrella plants, or papyrus, plant them in your garden. Be aware they are very, very invasive, so be careful where you put them. 

If you have lost some of your cover or floating plants, now is the time to replace them. Your fish are happiest with 1/2 of the top of the pond covered. That gives the fish a place to hide from predators and keeps them cool in the heat of the summer. It also keeps the blazing sun from helping algae grow in your crystal clear water. 

Water lilies will start to grow when the water reaches about 65 degrees consistently. If you removed them from your pond and stored the corms in damp sand, you can pot them up and put them in the water with the top of the pot about 6” below the water surface. Do not fertilize them until the first leaves reach the top of the pond. Then use an aquatic plant fertilizer. I use a tab that I can just poke into the sand. If I am out of those, I have used Job’s Tomato Spikes or lacking those, Job’s Tree Spikes. Take the tree spike, whack it with a hammer to divide into 4 pieces. Use one piece at a time. Throughout the summer, your lilies want to be fertilized at least once monthly. Do not over fertilize or you will be feeding algae as well as your pond plants. 

Things to Watch Out For 

Be careful as you are beginning to play in your pond again. Big Daddy bullfrog is snoozing between rocks lying in wait for a tasty fly. If you disturb him, he will jump and scare the pants off you. 



This and other seasonal maintenance tips are in my pond how-to book.  You can buy it here.:


At my website pondlady. com you can meet hundreds of other pondkeepers, ask questions and share your pond experiences.  And we love photos. Show off your pond.

Seed Buying 101

I found this Seed Gardener's Glossary, printed and sent to me from http://www.ezfromseed.org

They have words defined in understandable language.  I love that they tell us the difference between GMO seeds and heirlooms and hybrids.

Best of all they sell safe seeds, not genetically modified ones. Using their seeds keep our food supply safe and untampered with like Monsanto and other companies are doing these days. 

What the big chemical companies are doing to our food supply is scary. Check it out and then check out this website.

No, I didn't get paid for this post. In fact, the EZ feed folks have no idea who I am.

A Practical Guide to Building and Caring for your Pond is doing very well and stays in the top ten seller at Amazon.

Make sure it stays here by clicking here and getting your own copy.

Join us at pondlady.com to read experts answers to your pond questions and ask your own.

How to Repair a Pond Liner

You are sure you are facing repairing your pond liner. Before you panic, make absolutely sure it is a leaking liner and not another problem that is causing your water level to drop. Check your waterfall, check your hoses, check your spitters. Turn your pump off, fill up your pond. Watch it overnight. Did the level drop? If so, you probably have a hole in your liner. 

The first thing you must do is find that leaking liner. If you can see it, skip the next section. 

Fixing the leak 

If you can see the leak, you have an easy job. Assuming your liner is rubber or EPDM and most are, you can patch it just like a tire. You can buy a patch online and while you are at it, buy a roll of patching material, because whatever caused that liner to leak will most likely do it again. 

45 mil rubber liners rarely leak spontaneously. Something causes it. It could be raccoon toenails, doggie toenails, a falling tree branch, or maybe a piece of statuary with a sharp end fell and penetrated the liner. No matter the cause of that liner leak, repairing it, while not always a clean and easy job, it can be done by anyone with a bit of effort. 

Make sure the liner surrounding the hole is clean and dry. I scrub the liner with the same scrubber you would use for dishes, just make sure there is no soap in it. After scrubbing it clean, rinse it and let it dry. If you are in a hurry, use a hair dryer, but be careful you are connected to a GFI before you use any electrical appliance around water. When the area is clean and dry, apply the patch according to the directions on the package. Your work is done. Fill the pond back up with water. Don't forget the dechlorinator. 

Finding the leak 

Finding a liner leak can be one of the most frustrating jobs on earth. The liner is black, usually dirty and wrinkled. The leak should be right at the water line because water can't leak out below that. Or can it? Here in New Orleans, our water table is only inches below the ground, so often there can be a hole in the bottom of the liner, but ground water pushes the bottom of the liner so a leak could well be on the bottom and ground water is seeping in the pond. 

Pour some milk in the pond. If the water is leaking fast, the milk will make a trail to the leak. But if the water is leaking that fast, you have a huge tear and you can probably see it. 

Pour some fine sand in the water. The sand will follow the water to the leak, but as above, if the tear is that big, you should need no help finding it. 

Sometimes you cannot find the leak no matter how hard you search. I have resorted to this method as a last resort. Pump the pond water out. Remove all fish, plants, pots, lights, etc. Using a wet vac, vacuum the bottom to be sure all the fish waste, leaves, and other organic matter is gone. Rinse and wet vac again. Make sure the bottom is dry even if you have to wait several hours or get that hair dryer out again. When you are positive it is dry, stick a garden hose under the liner and turn on the water. Watch the liner carefully. Soon you should be able to see water coming up from underneath. You have found your leak. Dry it again and patch with patching material. Replace all pots, plants, fish, lights and refill the pond with water. 

It's a good thing rubber liners rarely leak. 

Leaks in concrete ponds 

If your concrete pond is leaking, there is only one relatively cheap way to fix it. Because concrete is brittle and our ground is always moving, concrete is freezing and thawing, concrete is one of the hardest materials to repair. Clean out the crack and use Plumber's Epoxy to patch it. If that doesn't work, call a professional. If the professional tells you he can patch your concrete and guarantee it, doubt it. Doubt it a lot. 

In all my years of pond building, I have never seen a serious concrete crack patched so it will hold water for more than a few weeks. Get your contractors guarantee in writing, get his home phone, his cell phone, his address and his Landscape Contractor's license number. Getting his insurance certificate can't hurt either. 

If your pond is built from recycled swimming pool liner or PVC or visqueen and it has a leak, you must start over again with another liner. Same with pre formed hard liners. Once they crack, they cannot be repaired. 

Luckily ponds rarely leak. But if yours does, you are now prepared. 


All of this and more is included in my How-To pond book, A Practical Guide to Building and Maintaining Your Pond, available  here

For information like this and even more join us at


pondlady.com

Anacharis Illegal in Wisconsin

At my website we get pond questions daily. With the problems that invasive plants are causing with the ecology of some parts of the country, we are having to redefine what we need to do to keep our ponds clear.

This is a question asked recently:

I have learned a lot from you, pondlady! You gave me great advice a few years ago. I quit feeding my goldfish and bought many bunches of Anacharis Grass for them to eat and all has been well. Now the DNR has banned it in WI. What will be a suitable replacement for my fishies to eat? I am worried. My local pond supplier says they will have ribbon grass and hornwort for submerged plants this year. Will one of these work? I assume the ban is due to the plant becoming invasive, which makes me wonder if I can go out and harvest it from a lake somewhere. I tried to overwinter some in an aquarium this winter but did not have enough light, got long and leggy not many leaves.


And a couple of answers:
1.  There are other similar species that are native to Wisconsin that can be collected from lakes, along with hornwort that is abundant. Your fish will do well with them and the algae that normally grows on the sides of ponds is all a few goldfish will need to survive. Do obey your state laws concerning the import of invasive plants. The laws exist for a reason, even when we don't agree.

2.  Hornwort will work well. So will cabomba. And it sounds like a Latin dance.

Anacharis is and has been banned in more than one state. I can understand why as it is so very invasive.

In my book I discuss various kinds of plants that can be used as underwater grass. They function as natural filters to keep the water clear and they grow faster than the fish can eat them.

You can get my book at Amazon

A Practical Guide to Building and Maintaining your Pond

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.