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Nearing the end of the summer now (in September...okay, basically fall), the pond is a perfect place to take photographs. Here are my two cats, Veronica and Figaro, enjoying the pond. They go outside daily wearing their harnesses and hang out in the vicinity of the pond area. They both like to sit at the edge and view the fish. They have never attempted to "hunt" any of them.

Note how large my hyancyth has gotten. The water lettuce has spread nicely also. However, the lilies have almost no leaves and have not produced flowers since July. I think this may partially be due to the fact that they are too big now for their pots and I haven't bothered to re-pot or add fertilizer. That will happen next year.

In the first photo Figaro is stepping over a bunch of Alyssium, which I think is perfect surrounding a pond. First, miniature flowers like Alyssium do not overpower a small pond and make it appear larger. I can also plant alyssium all around the "front" of the pond, yet still be able to see into the pond out my back window. Even more importantly, because my pond is an oasis for all type of wildlife (birds, frogs, bunnies), I have to make sure that the plants are compatible. Alyssium is one of the few plants I have found that rabbits do not eat. It also comes in a variety of colors - the local wal mart had white, purple, dark purple this spring.

Here is Milton at feeding time. I give the goldfish some "goldfish flakes" from Wal Mart. They seem to like these. I sprinkle them in one area of the pond. So far they do not come when they see me; instead they hide and once they see the food floating around and I step back, they start munching.

My vegetable garden is far away from the pond. Although I do also have sunflowers and cucumbers growing around the pond, the tomatoes are in the vegetable garden. This is the first time I have had a vegetable garden.

I grew them from shootings that my grandma cultivated from seed, and I have to say I am not getting as many tomatoes as I would have if I bought them in the store in spring. This is pretty much my only tomato right now and it is already August. I have about 6 plants and expect a yield of 3 or 4 per plant maximum.

I made a delicious salad with a tomato, a cucumber, and some basil from my garden. I topped it with grated parmesan cheese, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar, with some pepper. I am waiting for another tomato and cucumber to ripen so I can repeat!

I bought some pond plants from eBay (they shipped in a plain envelope surrounded by wet paper towels with padding!) in early June because I couldn't find anything but lillies at the local stores here. Some have been doing great, and some not! I love the water hyancyth and the lettuce, pictured left. They have expanded to about 5 times their size in the two months.

The water poppy and the red ludwiga, on the other hand, have not fared so well. The ludwiga is slightly larger than when I got it, and the poppy keeps having yellow leaves and is not really growing, it has increased only slightly in size.

I know that the former are "floaters" and the latter were planted in soil, could this be the problem? Or, are the hyancith and water lettuce just more hardy? I placed a few on my hyancith into my bio-filter planter and they have grown UPWARDS, looking very healthy. These are even the most healthy of my hyancith right now.

In general, I am happy with all of my plants. I am hoping to overwinter them, but if they do not survive, I will be buying more of the hyancith and water lettuce for next year. They float over the top of my mechanical filter and cover it completely for a more organic look. I spent about $30 for all my pond plants, not including the lillies. I got 3 each of hyancith and water lettuce, another 3 ludwiga and 3 poppy. ALL the ludwiga and poppy are pictured here, while you only are seeing 1/2 of my hyancith/water lettuce collection.

After months of "pea soup" water, I refilled the entire pond and started over. My pond water has been very clear for about 6 weeks now. It does not even have a green tint. Contributing to this success are: my mechanical filter, my gravity bio filter, my trickle tower, and all the hyancith and water lettuce that has finally grown to a reasonable size. Before, I had only the bio filter which I think was having problems because water retention was low - the bucket is small and the pump was going at 450 gph (now it sends half to the trickle tower.) Also, flowers were there but water lettuce which has now expanded to 6 or 7 florets per plant had only one floret each - same with the hyancyth. I would like to isolate the effect to see if it is one thing or all that are contributing, but I don't want to sacrifice water quality to do this! I have only been treating the pond with beneficial pond bacteria (from Petsmart) and no chemicals.

I can see down to the bottom of my pond completely clearly (it is about 2 feet to the bottom.) The fish are visible even from the house through the window. This is amazing to me.

The first photo is of Samuelson, he is only about an inch down. It is hard to catcha nice pic of anyone but Milton, so this was a success. The second photo is my ever-photogenic Milton. He is about an inch down also.

The last picture to the left here is almost the whole crew (missing Samuelson.) We've got the Shubunkin (speckled one) named Nash, below him the little white one is Vernon. Bazerman is higher than everyone else, and you can see Milton's tail below him. Milton is pretty much laying on the bottom of the pond 2 feet down.

I added goldfish to the pond right after my filters were ready - this was about a month ago now. I bought 5 goldfish at Wal Mart - 3 plain ones for 28 cents, and a fintail and Shubunkin for $1.88 each. (you can see the fintail and the head of one of the plain goldfish at left, hiding under some roots from the hyancyth). They have grown a lot already since I have gotten them, and they are almost trained now to come over when they see someone coming to the pond since we like to feed them. They dart around the pond in a little group which is very fun to watch. The Shubunkin is particularly cute, but difficult to see in the water against a dark background. The fintail is one of the most friendly and is almost never scared - I do not know if it just maybe can't swim as fast? The others will usually dart away under the plants if I come too close. I think they have a nice habitat in the pond with all of the shade from the plants that I have.