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• 2 Years Later

Making Progress

Plants have really started to blossom around the pond. Ground cover has covered up most of the glaring uglies and we have a small deck over the ugly, black pump housing and it's starting to look like I wanted it to.

I still mess around nearly every free weekend making minor changes, but it's in decent shape now. The fish have grown, too. The largest are about 20" with lots over a foot. I'm probably going to have to give some away soon as I have too many inches of koi for my pond. The general rule is 1 inch of koi per 2 gallons of water. I have about 500 inches of koi and 2500 gallons of water. They can grow a bit more, but I'm getting too close to the limit for comfort as fast as they grow.

The really big news this year is that the yellow lotus blossomed. Much to our disappointment, it didn't last year. But this year it is huge, bright yellow and glorious. A year later, both the yellow and red lotuses bloomed -- on different days. They are only pretty for 3 days.

In addition, when I set up the pond, we had some ferns in pots that looked absolutely awful. I planted them on the backside of the pond to see what they would do. Darned if they don't look like they are going to take over the whole far side of the pond. I may have to cut back considerably. What a shock!

The water lettuce and water hyacinth both do exceedingly well during the summer, but die in the winter. I've had to buy new plants the past two years. I'm going to try to keep a few alive this winter. I'll have to create a south-facing tank, keep it sheltered from the wind and keep it warm. Another challenge. More late news: The hyacinth grew pretty well in the upper pools where the koi couldn't eat the roots, but the lettuce died completely.

The wood deck over the pump-housing is probably too large. We messed around with size and shape, but I think it's a bit big. Still, it is a huge improvement over the bald pump-housing and electric service. Maybe we can dress it up a bit in the coming year. It's big enough to put a chaise lounge pad on top from which to watch the fish.