Plants a’poppin!

I can barely see my back pond for all the growth! The blue rush has exploded, the lilies are beginning to cover the surface, the zebra rush has taken off, and the parrots feather dominates the waterfall. You can hardly tell where the flower bed ends and the puddle begins.

But the real treat is in the front pond, with exploding plantains:

Lily pads as big as my hands:

And the stars of the show, the lovely irises:

Next up, lilies – there are two buds that should bloom in the next couple of days.

Michael, my big wakin, appeared healthy. She swam with the other fish, ate hearty meals, and had beautifully erect fins. A beautiful specimen (5 inch body, 115g), she exhibited no signs of disease.

Then, last night, when I went out to say goodnight to the fish, I saw her laying motionless on her side on the bottom. I took her into my hand, and she swam weakly out of my light grasp.

A couple of hours later, I checked again and she was dead – no reactions, no respiration.

She had dropped dead. I had a wakin do that two years ago, and folks told me that they can have heart attacks and hemorrages just like any other developed mammal.

This is not only sad, but shocking, as my fish have never seemed more vigorous and healthy.

We have one more frost predicted for the season, but spring has arrived as far as my plants know. I have a brown thumb, so I am pleased to have only lost one plant this winter, the fiber optic plant that was one of my favorites.

The first lily leaf has broken the surface:

The cardinal flowers continue to sprout:

The irises reach for the sun:

Plantains multiply:

And the parrot’s feather that I overwintered indoors begins to take root:

All that remains is the Umbrella Papyrus, which has to stay indoors until after the last frost.

The water temperature has settled above 50, with no cold nights predicted in the next week, so I gave them their first meal yesterday.

Once again, anyone who believes goldies have 3- or 30-second memories could not be more mistaken. As soon as I grabbed the soaking glass (where I soften the dry food), they started swimming toward me and followed me around the back yard until the food was ready to put in the pond. They were the same pigs as last year, and they scarfed up the reduced size meal. (I only feed them half portions the first few days.)

This morning they were at the top begging as soon as I came out in the yard. They will have to wait a few days to get a second daily chowdown, but it’s nice to be appreciated. They got wheat germ yesterday, and I have planned a meal of peas tonight to make sure their digestive systems have regained full function.Every single fish made it through the winter, so I don’t want to ruin that with a careless spring.

On the flora front, the irises, plantains, and cardinal flower have sprouted, and the blue rush, which did not die back at all in the winter, looks fantastic with old and new foliage. I have to keep an eye on the fiber optic plant, which stayed green for most of the winter, then suddenly died back in February.

Blue Rush, with Sparky and Flash enjoying its amazing roots:

Plantains:

Irises:

Cardinal lobelia:

The lilies in the back pond are beginning to put out leaves, but the front pond, which is colder and receives less sun, shows no activity as yet.

Spring is here!

What a difference a week makes! Air temps are now in the 70s, the snow has melted, the icepack is gone, and water temps  have cracked 60! The fish have awakened from their winter torpor, the temptation to feed them almost overwhelmed me, as they came to the top begging – so much for the 30-second goldfish memory myth. Another month must pass before I can be sure of no more cold snaps, so I resisted even Cheerios.

They even exhibited some spawning behavior; Frankie was chasing Mike vigorously.

Here are a couple of quick snaps:

The small fish in the back pond all wintered beautifully.

That’s one big wakin, and I think she’s preggers.

Not much happens in the pond during the winter. The fish mostly rest on the bottom and swim about occasionally on sunny days. The plants die or stop growing and blooming. Maintenance consists of netting leaves and making sure the waterfall does not freeze over.

Everyone once in a while, though, a clean quick snowfall gives the pond a nice frosting to look upon.

One of my three lilies did not throw up a single bud all summer long, but now at long last it has produced a bevy of leaves and one small bloom! Here, the bloom is opening for the first time:

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Here are some pictures of it in full bloom:

In other news, Hanna blasted us with wind and rain, overflowing the ponds and breaking down my plantains.The other plants escaped unscathed.

The day after the storm, I found Cal, a year old shubunkin, outside the pond on the patio bricks. He was still breathing, and the surface was moist and cool, so I returned him to the pond. Shortly, he was swimming slowly about. After a day or so of moping on the bottom, he returned to normal behavior, much faster than Pumpkin, the last jumper I rescued. He is eating and schooling; the only sign that anything happened is his truncated tail (That happened to Pumpkin as well) that makes him look more like a hibuna (common) goldfish than a shubbie.

Let’s hope he does not emulate Pumpkin and jump a second time!!!!

The Bucks Mont Pond Garden Society and Aquatic Connections sponsored a twilight seminar with Gary Jones from Aquarium Pharmaceuticals (Mars Fishcare).

Gary presented a comprehensive pond care course in about two lively hours. He covered everything from seasonal maintenance to water quality basics. The presentation included a question and answer session and giveaways of PondCare/API products. A full house packed the outdoor garden.

Aquatic Connections by George nestles beside a busy highway in Trevose, Lower Bucks County, just north of Philadelphia. It comprises an aquatic garden center with some terrestrial plants, a full line pond store, a fish sales house, and complete pond design and project services.

Best of all, though, are the lovely demonstration ponds, which evoke tranquility even amid the din of the highways and the vistas of a dingy industrial/commercial area. Twilight is the perfect time to visit:

The Pond Society has already trekked out to the world famous Quality Koi Company in South Jersey, and plans another field trip next month, this time to Aquascapes Unlimited in Pipersville. Even a trip to Mars is on the cards for the future. If you are in the Philadelphia area and want to meet your fellow ponders, just click the link on the sidebar to go to their Yahoo Group and sign up.

Pumpkin, the mottled orange shubunkin that I rescued from a previous jump and nursed back to health, used her newfound vigor to leap out of the pond again today.

This time, she landed on hot bricks on a 90 degree day, and when I found her in a vortex of flies, she had expired. There was no breathing, and she remained stiff when I put her in water. R. i. p.

She had completely recovered from her first exit two months ago. Her color was back, the scales repaired, the fins strong. Only the common-like tail reminded me of her earlier escapade.

She measured 5 1/4 inches from nose to peduncle and weighed in at an impressive 83 grams.

The fish just get fatter and fatter, but the plants have undergone some changes.

The cardinal flowers got so tall – over four feet – that the floating planter capsized in strong winds. I moved them to the shelf of the back pond, but giving them a firm base just meant the wind nearly blew them over in place. One of them bent over sideways; I call it the crazy lobelia because it is still trying to grow upwards, so it sort of turns in mid-air:

You might have noticed not one or two, but three lily blooms. This marks the first time I have ever had more than one at a time. I call it the back pond trifecta:

Here’s a closer look at the blooms:

In the front pond, I got my very first bloom ever on the yellow lily: