Our StayCation

[Event Horizon]

I had fun with this video.

It started as a video of my son playing the Marimba by the side of the pond. I then decided to keep the audio throughout and add a bunch of clips from that summer. My favorite part is where Mr. Cardinal gives Mrs. Cardinal a seed to eat. I slowed the film right down so it can be seen. He will often feed her at the feeder.

 

[j.w]

Awww, that was sweet seeing the Cardinal share that seed. You take such wonderful video's of all the critters and your son makes nice music on the Marimba too. Makes for a good team!

 

[Event Horizon]

Some video of our pond underwater. Again I am using some of the music my son has written.

 

[j.w]

Whoa I think I saw an alien there at the end!

Very nice video again. Does your son play his music professionally? He's really good and love the relaxing tone of it!

Hey w/ all those plants you have underwater do you just let them go hog wild or do you have to take those big pots out once in awhile to transplant them all? And do you have a bottom drain or do you just vacuum or net out stuff or do you just leave it to do its own decomposing?

 

[Event Horizon]

Very nice video again. Does your son play his music professionally? He's really good and love the relaxing tone of it!

Hey w/ all those plants you have underwater do you just let them go hog wild or do you have to take those big pots out once in awhile to transplant them all? And do you have a bottom drain or do you just vacuum or net out stuff or do you just leave it to do its own decomposing?

Thank you, it's nice to share these videos. I have fun making them.

We do not have a bottom drain. In the spring I take a pool skimmer and scoop out as much debris as I possibly can. I follow that up with the shop-vac. I will also drain and vacuum the river.

Ok. So you noticed my problems with the plants eh?

This is the pot with the grass I just let go wild. A lot of the roots are coming out of the pot but it’s just grass so I don’t think it matters…would it?

I was just noticing the water iris is coming out of the pot again, I transplanted it in 2011 and it sure looks like it needs it again. I will do this one again this year.

The big problem are these lilies. I have the pots on the bottom and I know I need to do it early in the season, but the water is really cold when it needs to be done. I have been putting this off but this will be the year. I am going to look for a wetsuit so I can go in there and get the job done early.

These pots are from the cat tails and my other rush (don’t know the name). I have a utility blade attached to a stick and I just trim off any roots that come out of the container. All the other green you see is that oxygenator. I keep a good mat of that stuff by the waterfall and river, but as it breaks it pops up everywhere. I just go around with a stick and pull up pieces I don’t want. It’s not the look a lot of people like, but we love the natural look of it.

My son is in University for music. He is a member of the Toronto Youth Wind Orchestra, as well as a few other bands. He plays all percussion, but his passion is in composition. All the music in my movies he has written.

 

[j.w]

I like that El Natural wild jungle look EH and I bet the fish love it down there and I would think anything that is alive and growing will not hurt anything. Only the dead and decaying parts would I clean up now and then so it doesn't build up too much. Even then you can get away w/ leaving some down there for the fish to forage and muck around in and other critters/bugs like to hide in it also.

Good for your son in getting into something that he really likes to do for his job in life. Lots of us end up working at things we don't really enjoy and we just trudge along doing it so we can survive and then retire as soon as possible. His career will not be a job for him, it will be more like a life long fun thing that he loves and gets to do each day. Hoping lots of good opportunities come his way in the future

 

[Event Horizon]

Last summer I was not the best for keeping things tidy. I usually trim off dying lily leaves and flowers before they sink. I do think this is the year to repot the lilies though. I don’t have a picture but one of them has a rhizome sticking out of the pot by about 12”! I presume that is a message saying change my pot? Here is another reason I need to pull them up. I think 2 of the 4 pots I have river rock on the top not pea gravel. I always put a inch of pea gravel on the top layer of my plants to keep the fish from mucking about. When I planted two of them I did not have pea gravel so I used a larger 2-3 inch river rock with the intention of swapping it out. I was looking at your post in the plant section on how to split the lilies. It all makes me a bit nervous.
What do you think of the iris? Would you just leave it? Trim the roots? (Does one ever trim roots?) or re pot it again?

My son loves music, he lives and breathes it, and has since he was 10. It is a hard industry to get into, but wherever he lands in it he will be happy. You are right in that not many of us end up working at what we like. But at least we have our ponds to come home to after that long day at work. With that said I really should get back to work. lol

 

[j.w]

I trim roots on the Iris's if they take over too much but not often. Mine aren't in a pot tho. They are just tucked in between my rocks around the edge of my pond. They are going to get pulled out of there tho as their root/tubers get too big and are knocking all my rocks into the bottom of my pond! So I'm going to try to tie all of them together in bunches and try to get them to float free in the pond as an island like Colleen has. Hers just did it on their own tho so I don't know if forcing mine to do that will work or not. If it doesn't work then I may try to put them in a deep netted floating bag thingy till they will do it on their own.You can divide and re-pot them as if they get too crowded then they may not bloom well after a long time being over crowded. I think eventually they will bust out or crawl out anyways and might even float away into an island like Colleens did and they look very cool that way. I don't think you need to really do anything unless you think it will be too hard later when they get even more massive stuck together and harder to separate and divide. Check out Colleens posts about them on one of her threads. She will know much more than I do on the Iris.

On the lilies, they are very easy to re-pot..............ONCE YOU GET THEM ALL OUT............. of the pots they are so tangled in. That is the hard part. Then you just cut them up into sections w/ a sharp knife making sure you leave one or more growing eyes w/ tiny sprouting pads on them where the stems will grow from. Warning if you don't use rubber gloves your hands will turn purple...........it goes away w/ scrubbing tho so don't worry.

 

[Event Horizon]

Very interesting on the iris, I will look for Colleens thread on them.

I think getting the lilies out of my pots will be ok. For lilies I use a solid tub (no holes) it’s the dividing that had me nervous, but I am sure once I get into it I will know what to do. Tell me do you put gravel on the top of your lily pots to keep your fish from rooting around?

 

[j.w]

No I don't put gravel on top. I just have mine in the kitty litter and I don't care if some spills as my pond is all one depth at around 3&1/2 ft deep and it's hard to see the bottom so you can't see the mess if they dig any out or I spill something. I'll just net out the bottom now and then and call it good. I use the tubs w/ no holes also or I put weed fabric in a pot if it has holes in it.
Don't worry on cutting up the lily tubers as long as you have the little eye sprouts on each piece you just plant them and they will grow, grow and grow and you will have so many that you will be giving them away like crazy! I had so many of the same color last year that I was afraid I wouldn't find homes for them all. Now I have some I got from addy that are different colors and am looking forward to them blooming like crazy. Can't wait for the warm weather to make them grow!

 

[Event Horizon]

Do you fertilize yours? I put in a once a year fertilizer in the spring (for the lilies only). As I said before my water is so cold in the spring and being 4 feet deep it’s hard to get the fertilizer stick down there. I created a gizmo where I can insert a fertilizer stick into the pot from outside the pond. Maybe this spring I should make a vid of that and put it in the DIY section.

 

[j.w]

Yep I have used various different things to fertilize them. Osmocote 14-14-14 shoved in some tissue crammed way down in the soil. The lily plant tabs you can buy at Lowes or H-depot. And Jobes Fertilizer spikes broken up in pieces for Tomatoes........6-18-6 analysis among other concoctions of a combo of Osmocote, composted cow manure (should not stink like cow poop,should smell like rich potting soil) and a hunk of steel wool about the size of a walnut shoved in the pot for added iron to prevent yellowing of the pads.
Would be neat to see you do the fertilizer cramming stick thing on the video :razz:

 

[Event Horizon]

I just keep learning and learning on here. I have never heard of the steel wool trick before. I guess because the roots will wrap around the perimeter of the pot I will put it in the center about 2/3 down? I will make a little video or some pictures for the “cramming stick thing” lol. I am sure there are other people that have the same problem trying to put in the fertilizer sticks in the cold deep water.

This whole quilt batting has got me thinking as well. I only vacuum the pond once a year, to get the stuff off the bottom so it won’t rot. I have noticed with some of my videos when the camera brushes up against the roots of the hyacinth, a lot of sludge comes off. I presume this batting idea will work for that kind of stuff? It’s not the live clingy stuff people are talking about. This stuff is dead and super fine, and would normally end up on the bottom of the pond.

When I built the pond I was only interested in biological filtration. If I can cut down on the fine debris on the bottom (cheaply) it would be worth a try, I really do not want to add any more pumps or filters just for water polishing. At the top of the river I put a 45 gallon plastic drum filled with two rolls of Savio Springflow media. I could not get the barrel as deep into the ground because I hit a tree root (I was not going to take any chances with our trees). I ended up cutting a good 12” off the barrel. For the output I drilled 5 holes and attached the corrugated hose which goes into the river, under the lip and behind the rock. It is hidden well.

I built this box to cover it all and I really don’t want to add other filter pads or anything inside it for two reasons. First off I think the best bio media for me is the sprinflow tape, and I don’t want to remove any to add other pads. Second reason is I don’t want to lift off the box I built on a regular basis. It comes off but would take two people. I am thinking I could take out some of the stones at the top and add a basket of batting and direct a couple of the hoses into it. I could also put a basket under my waterfall and just take it out when we are outside, but would prefer to have it hidden up the stream.

 

[j.w]

Just shove the steel wool down as far as you can and it should be good enough. The quilt batting will work good for getting any stuff like that where it is fine junk but you may have to somehow stir up the water in different area's so it gets flowing into the thing w/ the batting in it. You know how stuff down there if there is not current disturbing it it will just sit there? Maybe take a long handled net every once in awhile and swirl it around in there to get it churned up.

I've been thinking about putting some biological strapping type stuff in my filter container bowl. It should do pretty well in there as when he built it he made it so the water coming in below swirls around in a circle and then upwards and out over the falls. He made it out of stainless steel as he was a sheet metal worker and had the material to do it so you know you work w/ what you've got.

The container


The weir


Attaching the weir


Together at last


It's working

 

[j.w]

I like that box you built around your filter setup EH!