I was very happy to walk out to my raised brick pond this evening and find a single Nymphoides sp. ‘Taiwan’ flower. This particular Nymphoides species is fairly rare to flower, which is exactly why I put it outside for the summer.

Every summer I try to put a number of previously unidentified aquatic plants in the hobby outdoors in hope that they’ll flower for me so that more botanically inclined folks can use my photos and pressed specimens to properly identify them.

This particular flower is only about nickel sized in diameter, and sits about 2-3″ above the small lily pad below. It has four sepal and very delicate petals.

The plant itself is a very easy to grow plant indoors in your aquarium, or outside in the pond. Indoors, if you continually trim any of the leaves that reach toward the surface, it will eventually grow fully submerged. One of the neat things about Nymphoides sp. ‘Taiwan’ is that roots eventually grow from the underside of each lily pad, producing a fully viable plantlet. That makes propagation very easy, and possibly also explains why it rarely has cause to produce reproductive flowers.

Nevertheless, I’m very pleased that my plants cooperated and flowered! Now, I can feel justified to clear the water surface, as nearly the entire area is covered by overlapping Nymphoides sp. ‘Taiwan’ leaves! I’ll be sure to post soon if we’re able to properly identify this plant.

There comes a time when you have to chose which is more important to you, the fish or the aquascape. In the last scape I had in my 50g aquarium, I didn’t provide enough caves for my bristlenose plecos to occupy, so they took it upon themselves to dig underneath the rocks, building their own caves. After walking into my fish room enough times, only to witness muddy water, I decided that the fish have made their point, and a new aquascape was in order.

I pulled out the rocks, replacing them with hollow pieces of African bogwood. I also elevated enough pieces to provide small caves without digging. Replanting with just Blyxa aubertii, B. japonica, and Narrow-leaf Java Fern, I kept the scape pretty simplistic. I reused the sand path in the old scape, purposely allowing it to become contaminated with aquasoil, to achieve a more natural look. Overnight, so far no digging! Comments welcome!

After months of neglect, the previous aquascape in my 75G had gotten completely overgrown. What started as a few strands of hitch-hiker Riccia fluitans eventually covered the water surface in totality, shading out most of the plants below it. So, I decided to turn lemons into lemonade, using that pest of a liverwort as a foreground in my new aquascape.

I reused much of the same bogwood for the hardscape, but rather than showing the knobby side of the wood, I kept everything smooth-side-up to look like tree roots weaving up out of the Riccia lawn. I had lots of Cryptocoryne pontederiifolia in the previous scape, which I spread out as my background plant. The gaps were filled with Anubias barterii var. ‘nana’. Obviously, it needs to fill in a bit, but I’d love to hear your initial comments/critiques!

The 2011 AGA International Aquascaping Contest is open for entries!

All that is required are 1 – 5 photos of your aquarium, a simple entry form, and a signed photo release. You can enter entirely online. We will display all entries permanently on the AGA’s web site. You can also choose to have your tank entered in the 2012 Aqua Design Amano contest at the same time.

Winners will receive ribbons and cash awards
Closing date for entries: September 25
Winners announced: November 18

This contest just keeps growing and growing and growing! So fluff the plants, snap those photos, and enter your aquascape in the AGA contest to share with aquatic gardeners and artists around the world!

In an effort to aid worldwide economic recovery, there will be NO ENTRY FEE this year!

Every spring, one of the things I most anticipate is the blooming of our tiger lilies. These flowers are so fragrant, and so beautiful, that they attract both people and critters alike to them. One of the all-time-favorite photos that I’ve taken happens to revolve around the lily as well (below).

This year, I decided to go out and take a few more pictures that might complement the above photograph.

Fortunately, there’s always lots of ants on the lily flowers, so I didn’t have to wait long before snapping a few pictures.

These are all sugar ants, shot with a Canon MP-E 65mm 1X-5X lens at various magnification levels. I was using a twin flash + diffusers to light the critters.

I love how macro can open up an entire other world to photograph without having to travel great distances. The picture below looks like it could be taking place on another planet.

Now, of course, every good extra-planetary story has to have a villain, so enter the spider mites Homopterans, which unfortunately, are also taking up residence on the lilies.

These tiny insects have a cotton poof coming from their rear, that looks like might it be full of eggs.

These guys would scurry to the other side of the stamen whenever I tried to get a shot, so I had to do the awkward maneuver of holding the camera in place, while using my other hand to shew the mite back toward the lens.

I suppose I ought to try to get rid of these critters to keep them from damaging the plants. Any suggestions on organically killing them?

I also found a lightning bug taking shelter at the base of one of the flowers. There seem to be less lightning bugs today than there were when I was growing up, which I’ve read may be due to light pollution at night.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my photographs! In a week or so, the flowers will be gone, and I’ll have to wait until next year to see what critters the lilies attract.