My irises are blooming! I have never had much luck with terrestrial plants, and last year’s aquatics did not yield a single flower, but this year has yielded two lily blooms and three iris flowers already in the back pond, and the plants in the big pond are thriving as well.
Best of all, the fish are loving all the lily leaves, which cover half the small pond.
I stopped by Kathy and Phil’s house on my way to Lancaster for That Fish Place’s annual pond sale, which was a bit of a disappointment. I have always been impressed with their enormous store and its amazing array of pond gear, treatments, and food at great prices, but their livestock and plants proved underwhelming. I had never visited the store “in season” before. The selection of pond fish didn’t impress, and I have seen much better plants at better prices at Aquatic Connections and Fins Feathers. The half hour wait to be served in the livestock department was, I hope, not an everyday trend.
Kathy and Phil’s pond never fails to impress, however. It features a cascading waterfall, and they do not cull their fish, leading to a wide variety. My four koi and all of their goldfish overwintered nicely.
I took some pictures:
Lovely setting, eh? This spring has the emerald green look of England or Ireland.
What a waterfall!
Great variety of fish. Plain comets, sarassas, albinos, commons, and mottled mutts.
Spino (orange ogon) and Redchel (aka bekko) feel right at home in the nice clear water.
Marble (black and white butterfly), with Redchel, getting into the action.
Great to see them again happy and healthy!
Here are the pictures of my plants, which have largely settled in well this season. A beautiful spring day will perhaps help take my mind off losing Bumpkin.
From the big pond:
The lobelia has started well.
The bog weeds are going to town.
This fiber optic plant looks cool bursting out of the floater!
The back pond occupies a flower bed, so it serves as garden and fish pond:
It features a big assortment of plants from parrot’s feather in the waterfall to a lily on the bottom.
Healthy plants make happy fish!
The blue rush, marsh marigolds, bloody dock, and irises make a nice transition to the lilies, sedge, and shrubs in my terrestrial garden.
My most prized fish, Bumpkin, a magnificent midnight blue shubunkin, jumped out of my pond and succumbed. He dated back to my starter pond.
I noticed he was not in the pond while reviewing photographs of my newest fish, Harley. The normally sociable Bumpkin did not appear in a single shot. I went out in the dark and searched with a flashlight but could not find him.
This morning, I looked again to no avail and then moved all the trash cans and furniture near the tank. I located the corpse against the fence behind the roll of solar cover. No predator bites, just a whole fish covered in mud.
Bumpkin leapt quite a bit when he was young, but never managed to vault out of a small 125 gallon pond. I hadn’t ever seen him break the surface in the new pond.
RIP 
I returned from sales conferences in New York to find that my fish and plants were thriving. I will post pictures of the flora later, when the sun comes out again, but here are shots of the fauna swimming happily together, new and old:
