Field Trip: Lily Pons Water Gardens

Lily Pons

Top left clockwise:  Formal display garden, lotus pond, water lilies for sale, 

lotus bloom, slender cattails.

The lotus pond and garden store in the background

From:  http://www.lilypons.com/our-garden-store

I have been purchasing from Lily Pons Water Gardens (named for an opera star born in 1898) since I had my pond built 4 years ago.  I was pleased with the plants and materials I purchased and, on a recent trip up north, I took a short detour to visit.  Lily Ponds is situated on 250 acres in Adamstown, MD. The garden center is in a colonial building on the property (see second photo from top) and is full of practical and ornamental items for the water garden. Immediately outside the garden you will find long, narrow ponds from which you can select plants for purchase.  Immediately behind the building, under shade of a lean-to, are the tanks holding koi and other aquatic creature for sale (Lily Pons started under another name to sell ornamental fish).  Surrounding the building are production ponds stuffed to the gills (pun?) with water lilies, lotuses, large and dwarf cattails and other amazing plants.  Their large koi pond is home to koi of all sizes, and you can buy a bag of fish food to feed them in the garden center building.  In addition to production ponds large and small with beautiful flowers and plants, there are many display gardens scattered around the property, plus picnic spots in sun and shade.  If you are in the area, or are a water garden fan, pack a picnic lunch and visit!

Pond Update

This is the prettiest part of my yard (despite the ugly shed door).  My pond has really matured. Installed 4 years ago, the plants are thriving, and frogs and birds have made it their home.  I planted the pond shelves and beds around it to have changing color schemes: pink, purple and white in spring: white and red in late spring: yellow, red and orange in summer and fall.
Happy gardening!

Snow and Cold and a Still Frozen Pond

We had a few inches of snow here in Central VA., and still have below-zero temps.  Guess I installed my pond warmer a little too late in the season!  It in under the "doughnut" of snow in the photo below.

  

Stay warm!

Arctic Blast, Frozen Pond

      [Photo Credit: SR Vrana, Creative Commons License.  Use by permission
                                          of photographer only.]

     What a difference a few weeks makes, from sub-tropical Florida to frozen Virginia!  As some of you know, I had a pond installed about 4 years ago and it has brought me much joy.  I read a recommendation to buy a pond heater/ice melter, and I did, but I did not use it, until this weekend.  My pond has had a bit of ice on it from time to time, but never this much or this deep.  I have a waterfall, so there is usually some open water, to vent nasty gasses that build up from decomposition, and allow oxygen to get into the water. Last weekend, the area of open water was very small, and we are expecting more arctic cold this week. I installed my floating pond heater. 

     This heater needs to be installed near to edge (to make it easier to place and retrieve) over some open water.  I had no open water at the best point to place the heater and, indeed, the ice was about 3 inches thick!  The instructions that came with the heater said to use an ice auger to drill a hole in the ice (never try to break the ice by striking it if there is wildlife in the pond- they can die from percussive injuries...I want to protect my hibernating frogs!). I don't have an auger, so I poured very warm water onto the same spot over and over until I had a hole.  I placed the heater over it and it is working!  It will help that today will be warmer (around 50) to give the ice a better chance to melt before the next blast!

[Photo Credit: SR Vrana, Creative Commons License.  Use by permission

of photographer only.]

The solid white ice is 3 inches thick, the clearer ice about 1.5 inches thick.

Floating pond heater over a hole in the ice.

Stay warm!

Wednesday Laginappe*: Pond Dweller

 ["One More Frog" published with permission of Scott Vrana at: http://500px.com/ScottVrana]

Water gardening is so much fun, and not only for the lovely water plants.  Here is a great photo of one of the singing denizens of our pond.  To see others along with lovely garden photos, go to: http://500px.com/ScottVrana
Happy Gardening!


(*Lagniappe:  "something extra", in Cajun).

Guess Who came To Dinner? An Uninvited Guest

When I had my pond built, I did a lot of reading about garden ponds. One thing reassured me was that my pond was probably too small to attract large bird predators, namely the Great Blue Heron. After all, the pond is only about 5 feet wide and 14 feet long, add a few feet for the gravel filter/waterfall. So, good, I would not need to invest in an anti-heron device (aka a plastic heron statue that makes other herons believe "this pond is taken!") or worry about my frogs being eaten. Shortly after my pond was built, like the next day, a frog found his or her way in, and we have had chirping frogs ever since.
A very large frog successfully overwintered in the pond this year. I was at the point of bestowing some affectionate name on him, when I came home with visiting nephews and niece in tow, to find this above uninvited guest, with the remains of froggie in his beak. The heron has been in the neighborhood, casing the pond for over a week, but this is the first we've seen him at the pond (probably because my dog Bob scares him off or chases him away).
Next stop: the garden center for a plastic, anti-heron device! That is, if I want frogs in my pond (a heron can clean out a pond in a few short visits).
He is a pretty impressive specimen of wildlife and was a pleasure to see so close, 'cept for the sorrowful remains of froggie. It's a bird-eat-frog world out there!
Happy gardening!

Water lily

Love water lilies but don't have a pond? I have a pond, but the water moves too much- the water lily likes its water still. But if you have a large enough water holding container (thank you Madeline for this galvanized round water trough) you can have a super dwarf water lily (this one purchased from Lilypons http://www.lilypons.com/ ). It was easy to plant in a plastic container without holes (to prevent soil from leaking out) topped with cleaned gravel (ditto). I also gave it a pond plant fertilizer tab and put a quarter of a mosquito dunk (made from the natural bacteria BT) in to prevent mosquitoes from hatching. I dyed the water black with pond dye to hide the pot. In the winter I will lower the water a lot, and put it in my garage for shelter and top it back up with water. I think it looks very nice on my back deck.
Happy gardening!

Finishing the pond landscaping

As you may know, I was given a water garden for my 50th birthday (though I dithered about installing it until after my 51st!). I was happy with the pond itself, but disappointed that the company that installed it left it essentially unfinished at the back and one side. I got no satisfaction from them (except an 'offer' for me to pay another $1000 to finish it) so I decided to do this myself. For my last birthday, I got a pallet of matching landscape rocks ($360 on sale + $45 delivery) and read up on installing a dry set rock wall. I only needed a low one (they cannot be too tall or are subject to toppling). I built the wall you see above. The first step was to lay the line I wanted the wall to go- you can use a string or a hose to make the curve. This step is especially important if you are building a wall in a straight line, which I was not doing. Then, remove the grass and roots at the edge, making sure to not dig far into the soil (you want the subsoil as undisturbed as possible, or your wall may settle). You also want to level this area lengthwise, but allow it to tip inward slightly, so the rocks will lean back a little onto the bed itself, not outwards. Then it becomes a big puzzle- putting flat, heavy rocks on the bottom, overlapping rocks as you go, wedging smaller rocks in to stop wobbling, and finding the most pleasing arrangement of the rocks you have. It was a lot of fun, not too difficult, as as the plants grow in, it will look lovely!
Happy gardening!

Plunging in!

My pond.
I have taken the plunge...for my 50th birthday (last year) I asked for a pond or water garden with waterfall, though I wanted to arrange for it myself. I had started to dig the pond, oh, 8 or 9 years ago, but my then young son took it over for a bunker or fort to use in play. I guess that finally the weedy mess of an area got to me and 11 days ago, I had a pond installed. The top photo is the most recent incarnation, after I started adding some plants (water lettuce, water hyacinth, water palm, purple pickerel, star grass, lobelia cardinalis and l. syphilitica) but the other photos show the transformation. The first or second night a frog moved in and 10 days later we had tadpoles! The pond is about 14 ft long and 4 ft wide, almost 2 ft deep, and the waterfall adds about 4 feet in length.

There are several types of plants to have in a water garden. Floating plants help shade the garden and prevent algae growth (e.g. the water lettuce and hyacinth). Then there are marginals: these are the plants at the sides of the pond that are on a shelf higher than the full depth of the pond, at about 9 inches from the surface (these are the rest of the plants I mentioned by name above). But a pond also needs some oxygenating plants, which are not the beauty queens of the the pond, but hang below the surface and help keep the water clear. I need to find some oxygenators either at a garden center or on line. A few people have asked if I am going to have water lilies, but they need a still water situation, so, no, not in this pond. Same with fish, probably not, they need specific care, conditions and plants, plus they would eat the tadpoles!

This is opening up a whole new type of gardening for me and is a lot of fun. So, instead of looking longingly at the water plants on display at a garden center, I can have them in my garden! (And this will, hopefully, stop me from killing lobelia because I just can't find a wet enough spot for it in my flower beds!)

The pond is incomplete and obviously needs further landscaping. You know the old saying that, if you paint one room in your house, the rest of the house looks shabby? That is now true for my back yard. The pond is lovely (though needs retaining walls at the back and side and some more plantings), but the rest of the back yard looks bad in comparison (of course, I knew it was shabby, but did not care before). So, now I have plans for some large potted trees at the back, for a bog garden to the left and behind the waterfall, for a stone path in front of the pond. And we really need a new deck, and it should incorporate the pond view in its design, right?

I took the plunge all right!

Happy gardening!