Recently in pond Category

Like a spy did I creep and stealth, and I finally (Finally!) captured close-up shots of a dragonfly in my garden. Let's just say it's been a rather frustrating frustration of mine that the little boogers would never sit still long enough for me to get a decent photo.

But today I summoned all my powers of camouflage (well, I did have on a green shirt), resurrected my seldom-used skills of painstakingly slow movements, instantaneously froze into a well-blended-in statue when I felt big little dragonfly eyes studying me, and -- snap! -- took a picture. Repeat. Repeatedly. 

I'm quite confident that this dragonfly is a Roseate Skimmer. Eventually the pretty skimmer got used to my weird stalking behavior and let me get fairly close. If it got worried, it darted away for about a second and landed back again. One of the cool things about getting to take lots of photos of this guy was getting to watch how it tilts its head as it's looking around.

I find it interesting that the damselflies linger around the pond far more than the dragonflies do. The dragonflies like to perch on branches, rocks, broken sticks, and the top of the cattle panel I use to keep the dogs off some seedlings. I don't ever see them just resting around the pond.

The damselflies, on the other hand, find the pond their favorite resting spot, be it on lily pads, Horsetail, or the surrounding limestone. Here's where my confidence in IDing the little but mighty predators goes to nill, other than to call them damselflies because their wings align with their body at rest.

Is it a Bluet? A Dancer? I found many blue and black striped damselflies species photos, but I couldn't narrow down the exact one to match mine.

Well, I'll go out on a limb and declare this last one a Desert Firetail. And by little, I mean tiny. About an inch long. Despite its bright red coloring, it is hard to spot. My camera did not want to focus on it. It loved resting on the Horsetail in particular.

So there you have it. I get to officially check "get a photo of a dragonfly (and damselfly)" off my list. I feel so accomplished.

By the way, I've added a few resources to my sidebar that I sometimes use for IDing or learning about wildlife species I encounter. In this case, I used OdontataCentral. It doesn't mean that IDing is ever easy, mind you!

After doing a spring cleaning of the hot tub pond in April, I'm happy to report that plants and fish have recovered from winter well, and the pond life is thriving. I earlier had removed the overwhelming Dwarf Papyrus (when it eventually grew to cover the pond like a giant dome, I decided it had to go) and this spring added in some native plants that work so much better with their limestone pond setting.

This includes Horsetail Reed, Cardinal Flower, Common Rush, two native water lilies, and this Lizard's Tail, which is rapidly becoming a favorite of mine.

Of course, I still have Pickerel Weed and the almost native Texas Star Hibiscus, and a few non-natives. This little bud...

will become a beautiful Perry's Baby Red bloom.

The Pink Sparkle is also blooming, but I missed the window on a good picture, so I'll save it for another day. And the native lilies are about to bloom for the first time -- I can't wait!

Other non-native plant species include a small Taro, the submerged Hornwort, and probably still some submerged Anacharis -- these submerged plants are extremely beneficial in oxygenating the water for da fishies and in using up excess nutrients in the pond that might otherwise encourage more yucky hair algae. In the falls, the Lemon Bacopa is finally having a chance to shine, having been overrun last fall by the Ruby Red Runner (appropriate name that). The Runner is trying to make a comeback. I'm sure it will succeed.

The pond has become a haven for a variety of wildlife. We added a few more goldfish in, trying to get an actual "gold" goldfish and some fun ones with black spots, but it turns out they are harder to see in the depths of the water. So we most often still see the orange ones, and they are getting big! Total count back up to about 10.

I'm just glad goldfish are cute and friendly, and nothing like this prehistoric-looking gar skeleton we saw at Lake Sommerville last weekend. Did you know gar can get 5-feet long?

Something has been munching a bit on some of my lily pads, and caterpillar poop all over them helped me know what to look for. It's this armyworm caterpillar, so I'm back to another caterpillar dilemma. I know armyworms are considered crop pests, but it sure is taking a risk by eating leaves in my pond. So far I'm letting nature take its course, as I have to imagine that there are far better plants the moth should lay its eggs on. If this caterpillar makes it to adulthood, it probably earned it.

These little spiders are appearing all over the yard, but above the pond is a favorite spot. It seems a great place to build a web, but it comes with great risk, too. One of these days, I'll find out what these spiders are called. (EDIT: It's a long-jawed orb weaver -- thanks, Joy!)

  The recent nightly toad calls must have successful, because we've got lots of tadpoles again.

  And how in the world did this water strider get here?

We're far enough away from any other source of water that I can only imagine some eggs came with my native water plant purchases back at the Wildflower Center sale.

And of course we are seeing more damselflies and dragonflies than ever. Welcome, little mosquito-eating predators!

Nearby, I've made the dog pond a little more pondlike. Thanks to a hole in our old pool, we now have a green one (and recycled the old one), and a few plants and rocks and a small pump leaves it dog-friendly, more attractive, and mosquito-free. The water is dark from gravel and soil from an overturned plant a few days ago, and when I have a chance I'll clean it up a bit. It wasn't really the dogs' fault, but mine.

And around the pond, I've some small trees, shrubs, and a few perennials. Bit by bit, filling it in. This Sangria variety of Yellow Bells adds some orange to the traditional yellow.

            And the fragrance of the Almond Verbena is welcoming to the senses.

We still have our disappearing fountain, and a new bamboo fountain, surrounded by native Wood Ferns, is a pleasant sound near our driveway. Anything to mask the sound of the highway cars nearby.

I'll be adding in a plant or two to hide the pump tube and cord, and I might consider a fish as well, though it won't be as protected in the winter as the fish in our deeper pond.

I'll be updating the Pond Project page shortly. (EDIT: Done!)

A spontaneous pond cleaning turned me once again into the Creature from the Black Lagoon, or barring that, at least the Swamp Thing. Six hours spent mostly in a pond cleaning out winter sludge and muck, with the remaining time spent repotting water plants, turns one into a rather disgusting and smelly abomination. And no, once again, I did not take a picture.

It was time for a spring cleaning of the pond, that's for sure, but what really prompted it today was yesterday's trip to the Wildflower Center Plant Sale. I didn't quite get there at my normal early time, so I now know what it's like to be at the back of the line (note that everyone is admiring the bluebonnets off to the side of the path).

Not only that, but I had to park way off in a neighborhood close to the highway, so it was quite a trek with my little wagon. But this line is nothing compared to the one at check-out. I've never seen it go to the back of the sale area before (comparable to a full block or two distance), and the wait was so long -- I think for some it took close to an hour just to check out!

But I enjoyed myself, and I did get to visit with a couple of fellow Austin garden bloggers and other friends. I controlled myself and only took a wagonful home, and this time it included some pond plants -- hence my venture into sludge and slime! Had it not been dark by the time I got everything done, I might have taken a picture after all... but only of the pond, not of the Creature.

Happily six of our nine goldfish made it through the winter. I'll find out in the morning whether I managed to kill any of them with my massive pond cleaning.

And now it's time to go enjoy a margarita and help my back recover from my day in the swamp...

Bundled up in parkas, hats, and gloves to drive my son to his basketball game, we noticed how few cars were on the road despite the gorgeous sunny day. I guess most people decided to huddle under heavy blankets and sleep in, given that last night our area broke record lows, hitting the teens and single digits in many areas. It's cold! I love it, even if my plants don't. The cold didn't stop the kids from impressing us with their basketball skills, either. Watching them run back and forth warmed the rest of us up!

It's been a relatively dry cold front, but doggy water bowls, birdbaths, and ponds still show us the effects of the temperature drop. I thought our pond would be fine, given that it has a substantial waterfall, but I was surprised to find fat icicles hanging like stalactites under the falls.

On the side of the pond where the lilies hang out in better temperatures, a thin icy cover delighted the kids, who poked at an edge to crack it and discovered their fingers didn't care for the freezing water. And in the remaining bits of Ruby Red Runner, full frozen water drops glittered like diamonds in the sun.  

Has it really only been a year? So much progress has been made in our first year of gardening that it's hard to believe it happened in a mere 365-ish days. Hey, I only about destroyed my back and my husband had to have knee surgery, but what does that matter when our yard is such a pleasant place to be now? (Ok, my husband just pointed out that we can't really blame gardening for our failing bodies, but it sounded good.)

What started it all? The felling of one very dead hackberry that was dangerously leaning over our house.

When that tree fell, I had no idea that I was about to embark on a gardening endeavour of massive proportions. But I looked around my yard and hated what I saw. It was time, after 13 years of doing nothing, to do something. Even if I had no clue whatsoever about what to do. 

But apparently I figured a few things out. The rest will come when I figure those out.

Here are a few tidbits of how our outdoor world has changed. Now be warned, the overgrown state has to do with all the rain we've finally been getting -- I haven't been able to clean anything up. At least things look more green...

The backyard, before and after:

The pond, before and after:

The back porch, before and after:

The front garden bed, before and after:

There's a lot more to our yard than what you see here, and I invite you to see more. We have a long way to go, but it's fun to take a look at how far we've come. You can also hear more about the story that got us on our gardening journey.

This garden rocks! Why? Because it has rocks. We love rocks here at Great Stems. They add character, they add unity, they can be used as benches or stepping stones, they edge garden beds, they prevent erosion, they support plants or other objects that need it, they fill up gaps in the plant areas, they make water features look natural, they provide shelter for little creatures, and they are just plain cool. 

Take this fossil, for instance.

Or this giant quartz rock, of which we found two or three on the property. I guess it's quartz -- I'm not really up on my geology. I love the way it looks surrounded by pigeonberry.

A few days ago, I removed the massive dwarf papyrus from the pond, partially for aesthetic reasons and partially because it was working on creating several new root systems. But removing it also lets me show off what is perhaps my favorite rock on the whole property. It is this rock that earned our pond the name "Gator Pond."

The rocks forming the back wall of the waterfall actually look like the back of an alligator -- I forgot to get an angled shot to show you that a little better, but I'll do that another time. Now I just need to figure out where to put my dwarf papyrus.

Removing the dwarf papyrus also let us see our fish better -- they love to frolic under the waterfall. The waves don't make it easy to take a picture of the fish, however.

And of course, we love all the rocks forming our raised pond's exterior and falls.

Sand is basically pulverized rock, and here is a big pile of it. It might look like a sandbox, but it's the sand that was under our shed before we moved it on Saturday. The kids and the dogs have been playing in it. We'll be using this sand elsewhere in the garden.

And the dogs seem fine with the change in location of the shed. They chase one another around, past, and behind this shed. We moved the shed to make room for our next three raised veggie beds.

Here are some temporary stepping stones marking the path to the bench on the raised pond. At some point this will be a real path, probably made of decomposed granite.

We use some rocks to line paths and to edge garden beds. We also use them around the base of the little backyard trees in a lame attempt to keep the dogs from charging across and breaking the trees. It works as long as they don't get crazily energized in their playing. Here's a firebush and aloe in one garden bed. Ignore the weeds. I do.

  And here's our newest addition, another find off of Craigslist (which is where we got the rocks for the pond). I stuck my foot in for a size comparison because this is one big rock, but I think it just managed instead to make my foot look big. I look forward to choosing plants to go around it.

And of course, our latest rock creation. Looks different without water flowing, doesn't it?

  Notice the water is turned off now. Well, it's even worse than that. We had to dismantle it to figure out why the pump started screeching yesterday. Turns out the water was gone from the basin, and we checked it for leaks, but there were none. We thought that maybe an animal drank some of the water from the top and shifted the rocks covering the tube, causing the water to splash or spray out of the basin. Or maybe a visitor moved the rocks. Or maybe yesterday's downpour shifted something. In any case, now we're worried the pump might be damaged. Only ran one day, bringing our $40 fountain to about $60 if we have to replace it. So when we rebuild it tomorrow, we're going to have to be really careful that the tube cannot shift. I'm crossing my fingers that the pump is ok.

But what's odd is that next to the fountain is a little plant stub, the remains of my pineapple sage, as if it was chewed off. Do deer eat pineapple sage? Is it possible they licked at the running water and shifted a rock? And would they come that close to my front door, especially if there's so much water available around the neighborhood right now? It could have been broken by a human, but I couldn't find the rest of the plant, if so. A mystery!

So I still love my rock fountain, but I will love it more when we rig it so the tube is super secure. And I might need to place a sign that says, "Deer and humans, please don't touch! Our neighborhood deer can read, I'm sure. Or perhaps eat the sign, at least. And I'm by gosh getting another pineapple sage. 

For some time, we'd been wanting a little fountain in one of our front entryway beds, a sort of zen moment of trickling water as one approaches our front door. But getting a classic planter-style container with reservoir would have cost us more than $500, and it wasn't really my style anyway. So I wanted to see how cheaply we could make a disappearing fountain using as many materials from home as we could. We could have probably made it for $21, but we decided to be "practical" and buy a couple of other items. It actually cost us less than $40 -- I rounded up for the sake of the title. I'm not counting the cost of the electrical outlet, as we were going to be putting one out there anyway, not just for a fountain, and we already had a bunch of those parts anyway.

Money spent: We bought a large tub normally used for mixing cement ($11), as well as a small 130 gph pump (about $21). We also ran out of window screen, so I bought some more aluminum screen material ($7), but the rest will be used for plant containers, so I'm not really sure whether to add the cost in -- regardless, that's still less than $40. We seriously considered not using the basin and using other items we had at home, but in the end, we decided this might be best. 

Materials gathered: An old grill from our neighbor's uncle's junk he was having hauled off, leftover block-style rocks from our other neighbor that we had used to circle a tree in the backyard, a concrete block, and little colorful rocks we found in the backyard.

At this point, I have to give out kudos to my 12-year-old son. This was more or less his pet project, and while I gave some guidance in regard to the plan (he had some rather far-fetched ideas and I had to bring him back to Earth a bit), he did the bulk of the work.

The first step was to dig out the plants from the area and give them new homes in the front yard (that really did a lot to make our front yard better, too). And then the hole for the basin was dug. The basin we chose turned out to be ideal for the job -- the rock under the soil would have prevented the use of a deeper reservoir. (Please ignore the plastic edging in these photos -- it came with the house, and at some point it will go away, because I can't stand it.)

The concrete block is there to support the weight of the rocks on top of the grill, and we stuck some rocks underneath to let water flow. The ones we settled on are in the leveling picture below.

Dad helped with the leveling (and he also got to play electrician to put in the outdoor outlet).

We wrapped the window screen around the grill and cut a little hole for the pump tube.

Then we poured in some water collected from the recent rains (the change in rocks in the images had to do with some adjustments we made regarding the pump placement).

And the rest was just building the rock feature and collecting the little rocks for the base. Simple as that! Here's a picture of the rock work in progress...

I love that it's a little rock statue, and while I envisioned something like it, it came out even better than I imagined. Now I just need to choose some plants to go around it! I'll probably end up spending more on those than I did on the fountain itself...

Thank you to my son for all his hard work and dedication to getting the job done, and thank you to my husband for the electrical work that I'm sure he'll get finished soon (hint, hint).

Now, I should point out that disappearing fountains are technically a no-no during our city's Stage 2 water restrictions. We'll turn it back off when water is an issue again, but right now we have so much rainwater gathered that we actually have to find a place to put it all -- the grounds are saturated and the bins are overflowing. This fountain is only going to be filled with rainwater from the roof or gray water, NOT hose water. And I think it looks wonderful whether water is flowing or not, so when it has to be turned off, it's still going to make me happy. The water just gives that nice trickling sound, and I'm hoping we'll see some wildlife visit on occasion, too.

Lookee, lookee! Something new is on my sidebar. It's a list of all the plants in my garden. Click there, or click here, and take a look!

It's a work in progress, and as I add new plants, so will I add to the list. But at long last, I finally got off my tush and, well, sat on my tush, and typed up the list of plants. I've only finished adding scientific names for the Texas-native plants, but I will catch up on the others. Any other errors are purely accidental!

Yesterday I had a very pleasant time visiting with Bob of Draco Gardens and his wonderful wife Lynn. They had me cracking up with so many hilarious stories, and they forced on me gave me some fantail goldfish for my pond. Well, to be honest, I was out there to get fish (they have a rather plentiful population at the moment), but somehow they managed to sneak more into the bucket... they claimed it was in case one of the fish died on the way home, haha. I told them that because I didn't actually need more, that they'd all survive, grow, and make babies for me to bring back to Draco Gardens. Sure enough they all survived! More on that in a bit...

We spent a pleasant time chatting, and we got to talking about the Texas Star Hibiscus, a plant they love and one I just happen to have growing in my pond. I told them about the buds on my hibiscus that hadn't bloomed yet, and Bob said I'd be posting a picture in my blog as soon as they did. Well, guess what I discovered today?

Look at that gorgeous red. The species is Hibiscus coccineus, and it's also known as Scarlet Rose Mallow and Wild Red Mallow. It's in the same family as the Texas Rock Rose (Rose Pavonia), and it's native to Texas.

From a distance the leaves appear straggly to me, but close up they are quite striking. Elongated, toothed, and a beautiful combination of green and ruby... It's interesting to note that when this plant was quite small, the lowest leaves were remarkably wide and looked almost as if they belonged to a different plant.

Googling for a bit about the plant, I laughed when I read that in 2004 a Houston narcotics task force raided a landscaper's home and held him at gunpoint because they thought the Texas Star Hibiscus growing in the man's front yard was marijuana. This earned them a Bum Steer Award from Texas Monthly magazine -- for those of you not in Texas, Bum Steer Awards are given each year to the most idiotic or ridiculous people, actions, and events of the year in Texas and sometimes nationally. Not surprisingly, the list is long (and often includes politicians).

Back to the subject at hand -- yes, this photo was taken at the wrong time of day, but I had to capture a picture of the tiny spider standing guard on the flower. Can you spot him?

Here he is:

The buds on my plant are all paired. I wonder if they always appear in pairs. Even the single bloom has a bud with it, as seen in the pictures above.

While photographing the stunning plant, I realized I was being watched by our newest amphibian resident. Being ever the romantic, it's tempting to name him Prince, but I think instead I will call him Murray, after Bill Murray, who gets slimed by Slimer the ghost in "Ghostbusters." Why not just call him Slimer, you ask? Because that would be too obvious, of course.

I tried hard to capture a picture of the new fish, but they scooted under foliage anytime they noticed me looming above. I enjoyed watching all the fish school around together. The new fish are quite at home. We're now up to nine fish, egads! This isn't a great picture, but you can see one of the wee ones swimming with the "big" fish.

I am so jealous of the gorgeous dragonfly and damselfly pictures that many other garden bloggers get. Without a good zoom lens, I can't close enough to take a picture without the little guys flying away, if they even land near me. And yet I am happy to have as many as will come eat my mosquitoes and wasps and even some of the plentiful tadpoles. I definitely have noticed a decrease in mosquitoes since having the pond, though perhaps that has more to do with the drought, lol. Maybe bats are visiting my pond at night now. One could hope! Do bats eat wasps and hornets?

Just behind it was this caterpillar-eating menace. Can't it just eat webworms instead of my future butterflies?

And in my garden, I found this horrifying creature, the terrifying, shriek-causing, hide-all-your-plants-from Gigantic Grasshopper -- one of those that are so big they don't bother to jump at all -- they just fly their clumsy fly way out of reach. I knew I was making a mistake taking a picture of it when I should have just killed it -- it got away, flying to the branches of an oak tree. Which really bugged me! (pun intended) 

Today's post was supposed to be about my happy veggie gardens, but wildlife had other plans for me. Like our newest pond resident...

I found him peeking out at me from the dog pool. An actual frog for a change -- not a toad this time! It turns out that frogs are much harder to catch than toads. He darted under the water and far away each time we came too close for his comfort. We had to lower the water level by taking the dirty water from the dog pool (we give it to our plants; it was extra high from the rain a few days ago). And then we had to be extra sneaky with a big glass bowl, which we ended up bringing up under the frog. Once he was in there, he was quite willing to pose for some pictures. Or just stay like a statue lest we eat might decide to eat him. 

I decided to let him move into the pond. He was too cute to resist. Here he is on a pond rock, just before diving in. I'm not up on my amphibian species yet -- is he some species of leopard frog?

But the next day I made a different decision. I went to clean the rest of the water out of the dog pond and discovered, to my horror, that the toad eggs laid by the amorous toads of three days ago had already hatched and become tadpoles. Countless tadpoles. They were swimming like mad around the remaining water in the dog pool. Well, this called for a rescue. But they were not going into MY pond, by gosh. I decided to drive them to a nearby big pond.

First we had to get them out of the dog pool. We started by getting as much water as we could safely get from the pool and carting it around to area plants. Then we finally realized that it would be much faster to just pour water through a net into buckets and separate the tadpoles into their own bucket of water. The water got particularly filthy as the water level went down. The dogs tracked in a lot of mud after our rain the other day.

As we got closer to the bottom, we found even more tadpoles -- "baby" ones, haha. By the time we got all the tadpoles out, the count was in the thousands. I'm so glad we didn't attempt to put any in our pond. There's enough in there already! Bucket filled, let's go!

Seatbelts on, children!

We drove over to the pond and added a little water from the big pond into the bucket to make the transition easier on the tadpoles. Then we poured them into the shallow water at the pond edge (first shooing away the minnows and other little fish that seemed to think we were there to feed them or something).

We made sure the tadpoles were swimming (not that we could have given them CPR or anything). They looked happy enough, and so were we.

So we celebrated with boba drinks. I worried that the pearls (tapioca balls) would remind me of toad eggs, and so they did. My choosing a green drink was totally (toadally) an accident, though!

See the resemblance? 

We had one more good deed of the day -- helping jump-start someone's car in the parking lot. Then it was time to head back home. And the dogs are happy to have a nice clean pool that they can muddy up again.