The pond is doing fanastic this year. I finally deviated from my previous use of a solar powered pump in favor of a Mag pump and pond filter. The circulation is much improved, and the plants have gone crazy. Back in May, I have a single Penthorum sedoides survive the winter and sprout from one of my containers. Now, nearly all of the green mass of plant matter is the bush that the single plant has become.

The only other plant that may be even more prolific is the Hyptis lorentziana. This is a beast of a plant that has spread in every direction from its original planting, creeping horizontally, reaching for sunlight vertically, and everything in-between. Fortunately, the purplish green leaves are very attractive.

Left to compete for sunlight and space are a Ranunculus species, Bacopa monnieri, Limnophila sp. ‘Sulawesi’, Hygrophila odora, some frogbite, and Salvinia. Of course the Crinum americana plants are still doing well, but they seemed dwarfed by the other plants this year.

My regular garden plants are also creeping into the pond’s normal space. A huge stand of okra is beginning to block a lot of light to the pond (it’s about 7 feet tall now and growing), and my thyme and tarragon are invading from the other side. I kind of like the jungle look, however, as do our frogs, which we rarely see anymore as they are taking cover in the jungle. Comments welcome!

I was very happy to see our Crinum americanum flowering outside in our pond this weekend. I’ve been growing this North American native lily for several years in my pond, bringing it indoors every fall to overwinter in a 5-gallon bucket in my office. The flowers are some of the most fragrant flowers I’ve ever grown, very much resembling a woman’s perfume.

The flowers themselves are very delicate, lasting only a few days (or until the next rain), but they are nevertheless quite striking with purple/pink stamens. The stalks themselves run a couple feet tall, towering above the rest of the plant. The flower stalk begins like shoot from the base of the plant, and eventually, opens on the end exposing three separate flower pods like below.

Those, of course, open into the flowers. Interestingly enough, the flower pods themselves are not really fragrant at all until after they open. (This may not surprise you, but if you’ve ever smelled how intense these flowers can be, you’d expect the scent to diffuse through the walls of the flower pod.) All in all, these Crinums provide a lovely backdrop for the rest of my pond. Comments welcome!

I live in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S., which was just hit with record snowfall. I figured it would be fun to provide a little perspective for those not from the area. Normally, during the spring, my raised brick pond in the backyard looks something like this:

This morning, I took a quick picture with my phone. Where’s the pond? For a frame of reference, the fence is a six foot fence. Keep in mind that I did shovel a little bit of snow onto that area to make a designated “doggie bathroom” area in the yard, since even our labs aren’t tall enough to wade through 3 feet of snow, but still, it’s incredible.

Nevertheless, I’ve spent a good deal of time this weekend shoveling snow. I’m incredibly thankful that we have not yet lost power (knock on wood), as some other local hobbyists have and are very worried about the temperature of their aquariums falling far enough to threaten the lives of their inhabitants. Now that we’ve beat the modern snowfall record, I’m ready for spring, and gardening, and all the other niceties that come with warm weather!

Yesterday, I spent a large part of the afternoon preparing my raised brick pond for winter. Below is a picture of what it looked like right before I began. To prepare the pond for winter, I sorted through all of the plants, composting the extras, and bringing a few inside to overwinter in an emersed setup. I also had to drain the water down to about 2 inches in order to fish out all of the zebra danios, which would definitely not survive the declining temperatures.

In the spring I added a dozen danios, and yesterday I pulled out about 4 dozen fish of all sizes from fry to adult. They’re going to overwinter in a terrarium setup inside, which they should love due to the waterfall current I have in there. Hopefully they won’t continue to breed in there because I really was only hoping to use them as mosquito control — not as a fish I really wanted to keep in large numbers.

Hyptis sp. Growing Emersed

One of the goals I had at the beginning of the summer was to flower as many plants as I could outside. In that respect, I had a number of successes including: Ludwigia repens x arcuata, Bacopa sp. ‘Araguaia’, Rotala sp. ‘Sunset’, Staurogyne sp. ‘Bihar’, Bacopa monnieri, Limnophila sp. ‘Wavy’, and a few others I’m sure I’m forgetting. There were a few that I wasn’t able to flower, but hopefully they’ll send up flowers in the emersed setup over the winter.

Limnophila sp. 'Wavy' Flower

Finally, I closed the season with four frogs making my pond their home. They weren’t happy about me draining the pond, but hopefully they still have a few weeks to go down the street to the runoff pond where they can overwinter in the mud. My pond is almost entirely above ground, so if they stayed in there, they would surely freeze solid, which wouldn’t be good. Next time I build a pond, I’ll definitely dig deep down to keep a refuge place for fish so that I can keep some natives out there year round.

Back in April, I bought this plant from another hobbyist by the name Hygrophila sp. ‘Bihar.’ Submersed, this plant has pinnatifid (feather-like) leaves, which makes it very unique looking, but above water, it looks fairly ordinary.

We now suspect that this is likely a Staurogyne, instead of a Hygrophila because of the pubescence (hairs) on the stem and leaves. In addition, one stem has flowered for me out in the pond, and the flower very much resembles that of a Staurogyne.

Compared to the rest of the plant, the purple flowers are fairly small. I almost missed that a flower was present. Even the flowers have hairs on them.

I’m hoping that combined with these pictures, and a pressed specimen of the plant, that my friend can work with other experts to figure out what species of plant this really is. S. sp ‘Bihar’ most certainly is not correct!

After hearing Sherry’s talk about her pond at the last GWAPA meeting, I decided it was time to post an update about how my raised brick pond is progressing this summer. I’m happy to say that things are going pretty well. I had a few plants come back after being frozen solid through the winter, particularly some Potamogeton and Ludwigia palustris. Neither is incredibly unexpected, however, as they’re both native plants.

After a few seasons, I’ve had to replace the solar pump as the old one just wouldn’t turn anymore. I think detritus got into the motor, but unfortunately, it’s sealed tight, so I can’t get inside to service it. Fortunately, I had a spare, so that’s going right now.

You’ll notice that I have several bricks lined up along the front edge of the pond. This is to keep a certain dog, Bella, from constantly trying to take a drink from the pond water. She’s got a huge bowl of water just up the steps in the house, but she loves the pond water for some reason. I guess it must have a more complex flavor, but nevertheless, I don’t need a sick dog on my hands, so hence, the barrior.

Without the barrier, it looks like this. Notice the large zucchini plant to the left of the pond, which is producing lots of tasty fruit already. I also have a couple cucumber vines growing which I’m trying to train up, over, and along the pond. In back of the pond, you can just start to see the tomato plants, which should eventually form a solid wall of green as a backdrop.

In the pond, this year, I’ve placed every species of plant I have that I don’t know the true scientific name. I have a good friend in GWAPA who does a lot of research into trying to figure out that Limnophila sp. ‘Mini’ is really Limnophila repens, and similar cases, but it’s nearly impossible to do that without seeing the flowers. So, I’m hoping that all of these plants will convert to emersed form and flower, so that I can help him identify these plants.

To accomplish this, I’ve propped up a few pieces of eggcrate on bricks, and set some tubs of substrate just below the water surface. I already have a number of species converting to emersed form, but only my large Crinum americanum has flowered thus far. As for fish, I threw in a few zebra danios to control mosquitos earlier in the season. Big mistake! I’m going to end up pulling out tons of these fish if the number of fry present are any indication. I’ve also put a few Threadfin Rainbowfish out to hopefully breed. Comments welcome!

It was a beautiful day on Sunday, which I spent most of the day planting our garden. I was working around my raised brick pond, and I spotted this little tree frog. I’ve had several frogs visit our yard and pond over the years, but I’m not sure I’ve seen this one before.

I immediately snapped a few pictures, (I needed a break from moving dirt anyways), and sent them to my GWAPA friend and local frog expert, Corey, to identify. She tells me that it’s definitely a grey tree-frog, and from its black throat, she can tell its a male who’s been calling lately. Species-wise, it’s likely either Hyla chrysoscelis or Hyla versicolor, which are indistinguishable from one another except by their call. Thanks Corey!

It wasn’t able to get a picture of it, but when this guy hopped, he had bright orange splotches on the inside of his is thighs, which are used to startle predators. Corey says that this particular species can make a great pet, which I’m not planning on doing, but will be more than happy to see him around my pond throughout the summer.

Hopefully, he’ll bring some of his other amphibian friends, and I’ll have a pond full of interesting wildlife.

After waiting for some time to finally happen, this week my Swamp Lilly (Crinum americanum) sent up four beautiful white flowers. Very fragrant, the flowers have a pleasant smell that is something like a light woman’s perfume.

The white petals are accented by several bright pink stamen, jutting out from the center. I knew that I could expect a flower soon because my fellow GWAPA member from which I received these plants, said that they usually flower in the July/August timeframe.

Right on cue, the flower stalk appeared last week. Originally, the flower stalk seems as if it would only contain a single flower, but over time, the tip of the stalk reveals four separate flower pods, which in turn contain several petals each.

I haven’t seen any bees visit the flowers yet, but since they’re all throughout my garden, I would expect them to find it soon enough. I’m curious to see whether I can obtain seeds, verses simply propagating the plant by division.

Between the lovely flower and attractive folage, I think Crinum americanum has found a permanent home in my backyard raised brick pond.

I haven’t officially planted my raised brick pond yet, but somehow I’ve managed to just about completely fill it up. About a month ago, I tossed out a whole bin of clippings from my aquariums into the pond to stay damp until I could get around to planting them. Well, with the exception of the crinum pot, I never got around to planting anything. Instead, a number of stems have started growing up out of the water, anchored by the frogbite roots, which are getting thicker every day.

So far, the most prolific stem plants are Ludwigia arculata x repens, Limnophila aquatica, and Rotala sp. ‘Nanjenshan.’ Otherwise, some Didiplis diandra is still around as well.

I’ve only partially stocked the pond with a few Endlers thus far. I’m hoping to put out the rest of my Endlers before long. To this point, I have just enough to discourage mosquitoes from taking residence in the water. The frogs still haven’t managed to find the pond yet — something I hope happens soon because I love taking pictures of those guys.

The frogbite is starting to send its leaves up out of the water. I have some water lettuce floating in the pond as well, but only a few small pieces. I’m hoping to have more of that this year than frogbite, just for a change of pace from last year.

One of the interesting things that I have going this year is Marsilea quadrifolia growing emersed in the same pot as my crinum. What’s interesting is how delicate the four-leaf-clovers are right now. I have a pot of this same plant growing immersed inside, but the leaves are much darker, thicker, and waxier. Outside, it doesn’t look much different than the clover you seen growing in your lawn.

Another change from last year is some water sprite that I threw in there. Within a week, it was already growing up out of the water, despite not being planted in any container. I wasn’t planning on growing water sprite, but the price was right at one of the club auctions, so I decided to give it a try.

Otherwise in the garden, flowers are starting to bloom. White icicle radishes just produced flowers this week. I’ve never grown root vegetables before, so hopefully it’s not a problem to let them flower. Any expert root-vegetable gardeners out there? The radishes themselves don’t seem big enough to pick yet. (I pulled a couple already in anticipation.)

Also, the lilies are in full bloom and a beautiful bright orange! I love this picture above of an ant traveling down one of the flower petals toward the center of the flower.

My chamomile pot overwintered last year, and has quite a few flowers right now. I think I’ll actually have enough to harvest for tea this season. The bees seem quite drawn to these flowers.

And of course, whenever I’m out in the garden, Bella, one of our dogs who is obsessed with everything outdoors is always by my side.

I realize that I haven’t posted in about a week, which is quite a long time compared to my normal rotation. We’ve been blessed with wonderful weather outside, and I’ve been afflicted with a drive to take every available second of my time, and spend it working in our garden. Yes, the aquariums have suffered a little bit, so for now, I may as well update you on the garden.

I’ve started putting a few things out in the raised brick pond, with the most prominent being a severely trimmed back onion plant that I got from another GWAPA member. I potted the two stalks in their own pot with some fresh aquasoil, and planted Marsilea quadrafolia and Riccia fluitans around it. Unfortunately, I think the tannins in the aquasoil has stained the water a bit brown for the time being.

Elsewhere in the garden, I’ve prepared a number of beds, transplanting some plants into the soil, while in others, I’ve planted seeds, such as the Okra seeds above.

I’ve setup my usual tripod for pole beans, but this time, am experimenting growing some grape tomatoes underneath the same tripod, which should hopefully act as a nice tomato cage. I also added some everbearing strawberries in the bed around the tripods, which hopefully should be fully established by next spring.

The grape vine has new growth shooting out all over the place, with countless little grape clusters starting to form like the one above. Last year, nearly all of the grapes were enjoyed by birds (or possibly neighborhood kids), so we’ll just have to wait and see how it all pans out this fall.

Also leftover from last year, the collard greens have all gone to flower, sending up 6 foot tall shoots, covered with pretty yellow flowers. The blooms have really added a nice touch of color to the garden while most of the other plants are just starting to get going.

We’ve got a vast array of herbs in the garden, which eventually end up in some wonderfully seasoned, fresh meals throughout the summer. So far, this years’ herbs should include parsley, oregano, rosemary, dill, sage, lemon grass, lemon basil, Thai basil, Italian basil, lavender, marjoram, catnip, spearmint, cilantro, chives, and chamomile.

Finally, I’ve hung up some beautiful baskets of purslane from a great local nursery near us. Hardy, ever-blooming, and drought-resistant, they’re almost the unkillable, beautiful flower. And did I mention that they’re pretty?

Now that most of my garden plants are in the ground, I’m hoping to get back to my aquariums. Aquarium updates coming this week, I promise!