Sunday, May 29, 2011

Our New Garden Pond

April and May brought me two essentials for gardening – rain and lots of public holidays!

The first early rains in April allowed me to fulfill my New Year garden plans. Those of you that follow Fer's Garden in Japan will remember his Carnival and all the great ideas we had for our gardens.


My dream was to build a second pond in the garden. After the first early rains in April the ground was a little softer - allowing us to dig.



The next few public holidays gave us time to cart all the rocks to the back garden - lots of aching muscles after that.

Hard to see in in the photo's but we have a little river bed leading from the old pond into the new one. We have a lot of pots in the bottom of the pond with aquatic plants. I am a little frustrated that I couldn't find any indigenous aquatics at our local nurseries - I gave up after visiting at least five different nurseries. A friend came to the rescue with our local Waterblommetjies (Aponogeton distachyos) and Vallisneria. I have planted Cape thatching reed, Arum lilies ( Zantedeschia aethiopica), ferns (Rumorha adiantiformis )and Aristea major around the pond. On the drier ledge near the pool paving I have Crassula falax, Crassula coccinea and Ficinia indica.

It still looks rather bare but I am sure that in a few months it will all be lush and green.