Pond in Southern Illinois

[CountryEscape]

Hay now, SMM, you must have seen someone else's forecast! They are talking about us here in central Illinois having mid to upper 70's for the next 5 days, and then mid to upper 60's for the 5 days after that! Sure can't be complaining about that type of fall weather, are you? Or, do you prefer 80's and 90's year round?! :blueflower: I'm loving this fall weather we have had so far. Hoping to get a good shower on Saturday, too! My daughter in UT said it was raining most of the day today, and maybe that front is pushing this way for us on Sat.

 

[Sheetmetalman]

Oh I love it too, Patti but every morning lately when I go to work at 5:45 a.m. its not 70 or 80--its been 45 and 50 so it just makes me feel like its gonna be a bad winter--like I said maybe I'm just getting old, LOL. Hey--here is a pic of my filter with your plants, they really took over-I like the way it hides the filter top but I'm definitely keeping them out of the pond--way too invasive. I ended up with a new computer with windows 8 after I dropped my old laptop with win 7--I hate #8, I don't know what drugs Microsoft Techs were using that made them think 8 was a good Idea--It is geared towards Apps and the stupid things pop up constantly while I'm trying to do something--tempted to "Accidently" drop this one too and go find an older one with 7 on it, LOL

 

[addy1]

Go to a tech store and ask them to install win7 for you. I still use xp, lappy 6 years old, still works, refuse to upgrade.
Nice looking there smm

 

[CountryEscape]

Yep, that's Penny Wart in your filter. I, too, want to remove them from one of my bogs, and I don't let it out on the ground. I've seen the water clover root into the ground. Even saw parrots feather go "over the edge", but it didn't seem to root, just laid on top of the ground. It will all get trimmed back for winter, when it dies off. Pulled most of the PW from koi bog. In the goldfish bog, it is totally overrun with water clover, penny wart and water parsley/celery. But, might leave that as is, since that bog seems to be doing a fantastic job of keeping the goldfish pond water crystal clear. I will keep the nicer plants in the koi bog, which is closer and more visible to my back deck. Think I will take your results and put PW in my filter top for next year, too. They look much nicer than the ludwigia that I put in mine this year, although the ludwigia does bloom, and PW doesn't ... decisions decisions ....

 

[addy1]

I put in impatiens on the top of my shubbie tank sort of filter. They have bloomed beautifully. They are somewhat shaded due to the apple trees. Like the colorful flowers coming out of the rocks.
[sharedmedia=core:attachments:59541]

 

[CountryEscape]

Wow, those are beautiful, and I always go for color first, when I can. Can I assume you have the plants in pots of dirt/potting soil, Addy. I guess I could make a shelf on top of the filter, put plants on that to cover it up, too. Just figured something growing IN the water will help to filter it as it comes out the top.

 

[addy1]

Wow, those are beautiful, and I always go for color first, when I can. Can I assume you have the plants in pots of dirt/potting soil, Addy. I guess I could make a shelf on top of the filter, put plants on that to cover it up, too. Just figured something growing IN the water will help to filter it as it comes out the top.

Nope yanked them out of their pots, shook the dirt off the roots. They are laying on a piece of window screen to keep them from sinking too deep into the water. Just bare roots in the water. I have not moved them since putting in, didn't want to mess with their growth. I would assume a huge mass of roots now.

 

[callingcolleen1]

I am starting to feel old too, our mornings are getting very cold here and hover near freezing. We have had one or two light frosts in the last week or so and my impatiens are dying now cause they hate the slightest frost.

Although I can't complain, cause it could be much much worse up here, very common to have snow this time of the year up here in Medicine Hat, so I am happy to still have sunny afternoons in the 50's and no snow to tread on while walking the puppies.

Look, we still have some green leaves on the trees and the grass down by the South Saskatchewan river is turning green again and it looks like early spring!!

 

[j.w]

Wow those plants sure grow good for you there SMM! For me this year everything just grew so so. Don't know what the problem is,maybe not enough fish poo.........can't believe that tho, who knows.

 

[callingcolleen1]

And my hostas are turning yellow now, kind of depressing that my season is so darn short... SMM have your leaves on the trees turned yellow yet?

I had to laugh when I read about your windows 8! I got windows 8 too, but it is my first computer and I have not played with windows since I was in the Army and way back then it was window 2! Ha ha ha

 

[j.w]

My Hosta's are going bye bye too and they look horrible.

I'm hanging on for dear life to my old xp machine but come Feb 2014 they will stop updating for it. You can then load up a Linux system but not sure yet how complicated that will be. Linux has free versions that are supposed to be good. I have a windows 7 in my little netbook and love that one. Will try to avoid the #8 version and hope they come up w/ something better by the time I really have to switch to something else.
Linux info for those of you w/ a bit of geek in you:
http://www.howtogeek.com/96541/the-...-your-old-windows-xp-for-a-more-secure-linux/
http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Linux
http://askleo.com/how-risky-will-it-be-to-keep-running-windows-xp/?awt_l=GAt8x&awt_m=Iyg8jyDgYZdfbL

 

[Sheetmetalman]

Hi everybody, I will say one thing about windows 8 laptop--my son is real tech savvy and he put something called classic shell which gives you the option to take 8 back to xp, vista or win 7--its not perfect but its as close as you can get until windows revises 8 into something more like 7 which Ryan said they are talking about doing since so many people hate win 8. Addy I'm gonna try that next year with the impatiens--looks real nice. Getting ready to start planning for a new large pond for next spring. We have pretty much made the decision to bite the bullet next summer and put our lake house up for sale--if we can get what I hope for it and our builder can keep his house bid in the ballpark he initially quoted us, we plan on moving back out to the farm and building a new house, which means I have to start working on a new pond to house the Koi and Albino Catfish when we move. We both bout fell over when we found out how high new houses are costing to build now--not happy about the cost but with Ryan moving out and Holly finishing her college over the next year or 2 we decided now is the time to start thinking about building a smaller house. Will miss the lake but it will be nice to live out of a timber where we can have a garden and to have a yard where the grass will actually grow and to live on flat ground instead of having a cliff for a back yard. Anne is excited to have a new house and I'm excited to have a new house that wont need maintenance or remodeling for a few years.

 

[addy1]

Jw I have used linux off and on, it works very nice.
I am just letting my lappy run as long as it will, when it dies it dies then I will make the decision on what to move on to. My honies android tabs are nice, typing on a tab is not easy, much prefer a keyboard. And no usb to load pics. But you can use the speak function to speak type, it works pretty darn good.

If they don't upgrade xp anymore no biggy unless it just dies. All my proggies are only xp, would be a big pain to swap up right now. My biggest issue is running out of hard drive room.

Good luck on your new home to be SMM, I have had one built by us new home in my life, it was great! (previous hubby) We are looking a building a small new home up in pa on our lot, 900 sq ft or so, (no inspections needed at that size) More of a seasonal type home, it is at 3000 feet, darn cold and snowy in the winter. Having just the shell put up would run around 18k. We would do the interior.

 

[CountryEscape]

I can understand your desire to move out of the woods, SMM, and to flatter ground. I, too, lived in the deep woods. I never did count the number of trees I mowed around ... but it was over 100 easily. Thanks goodness for a ZTR mower. BUT, like you said, minimal plants can grow or, more accurately, will THRIVE in that much shade. I love my house and openness, no leaves to rake (they literally blow to the next township!), and all the sunshine I want. BUT, the winds don't stop with no stands of trees, so I do have to consider everything I plant here with regard to how it will stand up to the winds. I can grow all the flowers and plants that love full sun, and have even created areas that will eventually be partial shade! And grass .... I love mowing the grass now, since it's almost always green ... except when we have droughts like last summer, but then everyone had no grass. Good luck with your new home! Yes, when house prices started going back up, so did new home builds. But, it will be worth it! If you need any help digging out your new pond, give me a shout! I'd be happy to come help. :blueflower:

 

[archimedes]

Pretty Pond.

It looks like a portion of it is above ground, framed by wood. Is that right? If so, how did you build that above ground part?

Thanks