Not sure if I can get these pictures in or not. But just wanted you to see my daff's & tulips.

Trying again if this works the old cats are Sassy & Bubbles

This is not a good camera so the pictures are not very clear

Holly, they are beautiful!

Holly - great pix of the cats and the flowers. We got our first six tulips open today. The plant are about six inches high and the blooms are about four inches across - strange looking but exuberant color - kind of tangerine/melon! LOL The daffies aren't open yet, but are close. Good to know our spring is just around the corner if you're in full bloom in PA!

Holly - one pond is on the patio right outside the window over the kitchen sink - 4 x 9. That pond has been in for about ten years. We pulled up patio bricks and dug down into the sand - we also built the edges up with a cinder block wall (just one high - not mortared) and a couple patio bricks for the edging. We used a 10 x 16 liner.

The new pond went in last Memorial Day - we dug all day and had it finished by evening. That pond is about 6 x 14 and has an 8' stream and a small upper pond as a feeder. We got a large waterfall pump for it and the stream really bubbles and tumbles along on its way to the pond itself. It drops about 8" into the pond.

These pix were taken about three weeks after we put the pond in. We moved some plants from the other pond and got a box of water hyacinths from Momz in FLA, too.







Both ponds are hip deep and we winter all the critters over with a pond heater in each.

Oh - forgot to mention the best part - since we didn't really have a "hill" for the stream - all the soil that came out of the hole - went into building up a small *molehill* for the stream and top pond. They're maybe a bit above knee-high at the top pond and the stream swoops a bit around a rosebush that was happy right where it was on. I thought the fake hill would look funny but the plants and flowers on and around it really fool the eye.

Rusty your pond is great I'll dig up some from last year of our box pond. I gave it to Ric for his birthday 4 years ago. I bought all the materials he just had to build it.

Holly and Rusty, great pics. we can't grow daffs and tulips down here. They're gorgeous.

I gave Jim the pump and stuff for a pond several years ago. We still don't have it set up. We were in drought conditions for so long, it didn't seem right. maybe this year.

Cindy - jump in - all you have to do is dig it and the frogs will come. LOL The woodfrogs in our ponds were QUACKING their mating calls last night during an incredibly loud thunderstorm. Woke us up and then as we were getting back to sleep we could hear the frogs calling. Bet the spotted salamanders were mating last night. First good rain this season so they were overdue. Bet our koi and goldfish start mating in the next day or so, too.



And you only have to fill it once - and top it off if you don't get rain for a while. Ours was a little low yesterday - today it's FULL to the brim.



Holly - I'd love to see it - Boxerbob and I are nutz about ours. We started out with a fiberglass kidney-shaped pond that was barely big enough for a couple pots and some fish. We finally made it into a bog garden last year. Filled it with peat and planted purple loosestrife, cattails, ligularia, ferns, irises and dames rocket. Just starting to throw new vegetation this week.

Cindy, Don't feel guilty think of it as providing a water source for animals. The deer use our excess tub in the pasture for drinking water.

well, the other part is Jim's procrastination. he's a pro, but he has so many other endearing qualities.

2 years ago, I had a little hussy frog lay 3 batches of eggs in my rain buckets. I spent 6 months raising those tadpoles. Have to clean out the buckets every couple of weeks or they stink. When it rained I had to go pick up tads out of the driveway when they washed out of the buckets. Jim (and everyone else I know)thought I was nuts.

I had a young volunteer at the museum - about eleven - who would save all the worms he saw during and after rainstorms. Bet he grew up into a nice guy! LOL

BTW - it was lightly sprinkling when we checked the garden this morning at 7 and there was a pair of big nightcrawlers mating right next to the upper pond. Bob had never seen that before. The two were side by side and the thick bands they have were fused to one another.

I fed them to the turtle.



I'm KIDDING!

Rusty, you have such a warped sense of humor. That's what I like about you.

It's good to be among kindred spirits, Cindy! LOLOL

rusty, nice looking ponds, i bet you do enjoy them alot. they are so relaxing to sit beside.
i have been wanting to build one but have been too busy with building horsey things, like fences, barns and of course cleaning them and the best part, riding the horses.

seems i have too many projects and too few hours to do them in. common problem i am sure.

Here's the full view of the patio last night we sat out with a nice fire in the chimmie listening to the pond fountain and a nice wogga/wogga Also a picture of the box pond mostly empty now but I will find last years pictures so you get a better picture.

Well it didn't like those pictures just have to wait until tomorrow.