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Building a pond + other stuff!

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Yesterday I lost all my normal days gardening work. It rained from 6pm Wednesday evening to 11.45 pm Thursday night.

Luckily it’s been dry today so I managed to do half of the work I should have done yesterday today so I’m now knackered!

It is lovely to see the grass growing again. I put some weed and feed on one of my customers lawns last week and it’s gone mad!

On another subject . I’ve owned perhaps 15 cats over my life time ( once I had 6 at one time) and they’ve all known how to avoid getting wet in bad weather. Most would sit under my car but my latest cat Moz does not seem to see a link between rain and getting wet!

He often sits out in the middle of the lawn in a thunderstorm and cares not a jot!

Last winter he sat in the middle of my lawn in a snow storm for so long that the lawn was covered with half an inch of snow but when he got up it was green underneath where he’d been sitting!

Here’s Moz

I’ve even provided a shelter ( which later in the year I’ll fill with dry leaves to hopefully provide a hibernation place for a hedgehog) see below

but will he use it? No!

Here’s a link to a video of Moz when he sees snow probably for the first time

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31559373@N00/4314819850/in/set-72157621602639178/

Does anyone know what this is? It has appeared via (I asssume )bird droppings in a couple of my customers gardens. It grows to about 6 feet high.It has white flowers followed by little black fruits

I’ve just been told the above plant is American Pokeweed. (Phytolacca americana).

Anyway here’s another project I undertook for a customer….

I created this pond in March 2006 .The customer didn’t want to go to the expense of covering the liner edges with rocks so I planted it with spreading plants. Some of these have been very effective, some have not. A couple of years after this was taken and with a few extra ground spreading plants added the pond liner disappeared and it looked really natural.

The water features were the customers idea. He bought 3 different diameter circular slabs and had a hole drilled through the centre of each. Water is then pumped through a pipe which reaches to just below the top of the top slab. The slabs are supported on bricks under the water and there is a gap of about 1 inch between each slab. The water trickling over the slabs sounds beautiful and also aeriates the pond.The feature was incredibly cheap compared with shop bought features. ( Cost each excluding the pump was about £5!)

You could use this water feature without a pond. Dig a hole put something about the size of half a beer barrel into it to hold water, Cover with heavy duty galvanised netting and put the slabs of the feature on top. Then cover any netting still showing with pebbles. The water would then just drain through the pebbles into the barrel which would have a fully immersible pump inside to pump the water around.

This would be virtually maintenance free and I guess safe for young children.

More blog posts by anchorman

Previous post: Long thin garden makeover

Next post: Replacing a pond liner and creating a new pond.



Comments

 

The pond looks absolutely fantastic. Well done !
As long as MOZ is happy that's OK. We had a cat very similar, Mitzi, who has now gone to the angels, he loved the rain and snow for 18 years. He's still with us though, in a little 6inx6in box in the living room, gord bless him. Sorry don't know what the plant is.

27 Aug, 2010

 

What a beautiful job you did there.....I love it!

27 Aug, 2010

 

That garden is beautiful and I love the pond, Moz is a very contented looking cat...........

27 Aug, 2010

 

I looked at all the photos and videos of Moz on Flickr- loved them. He's a lucky cat and he knows it.

27 Aug, 2010

 

Such a wonderful Pond...with the customer`s idea! your talented work, looks
like a work of art...that is what i call a Natural Pond...
I wonder what it looks like now? Must be well established?
I bet the Customer was well pleased with the result? I thought, it would have cost a lot more than a fiver...unbelievable!!
I could not stop laughing to myself at the part where you said, the grass was
green where she had been laying in the snow lol...Moz is a strange, weird
wonderful cat, seems like Moz prefers the outdoors to being inside lol
nice Blog anchorman : ~ ))) Loved the pics...

28 Aug, 2010

 

The plant is pokeweed - it is a US native. Mine are over 9 feet tall! It's also toxic, especially the berries & root, although the birds like them. Here in the south people make "poke salad" (they pronounce "salad" like "sallatt!"). I've never made it but you do have to cook the leaves pretty well so you don't wind up poisoned. If you ever need to remove it, be careful how you handle the root as that's the most dangerous part of the plant. It can be fatal if ingested.
Love the pond and cat - he reminds me of my Bandit but Bandit isn't as fluffy.

29 Aug, 2010

 

Thanks very much for the information about Pokeweed, Lauram

29 Aug, 2010

 

Nice blog Anchorman. I love the way the plants are softening and hiding the edges of the pond. It looks much more natural than rocks. Great invention that water feature, and as for that pokeweed...isn't that amazing? I saw it first on Spritzhenry's photos and I thought it looked like it had been invaded by beetles! The seeds are so shiny! Never seen it up here in scotland though.

11 Nov, 2010

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