In the heat of summer there is no place so pleasant as sitting on a bench as the sun sets, watching goldfish and koi swim lazily in the garden pond. In my garden there are five ponds, and along side each there is a bench, or a seat, or just a boulder, so that one…
Category: ponds
Japanese iris
In my garden there are five ponds, four that are one hundred fifty square feet and smaller, and a large pond that is nearly fifteen hundred square feet that I call the “swimming pond”, though I do not swim, only float in it. Only the swimming pond is in full sun, and here is the…
A place to relax
I wore out my old garden lounge chair, and have had to purchase another, the kind that’s called a zero gravity chair but is really just a recliner. They’re cheap and ugly, but suit my purposes quite well. I’ve tried to “relax” (sleep) in one of the chairs we have scattered on the various stone…
A tadpole’s paradise
For a few weeks in April, evenings in my garden are alive with the sounds of spring peepers, so today, inevitably as the course of nature would have it, the ponds are full of tadpoles. Not a few, but thousands, many thousands. I have five ponds in the garden, and a sixth dirt bottom, wet…
The Spring Garden Show
Late winter garden shows are an interesting experience, particularly when you’re the one building the garden. We begin with an empty concrete floor Monday afternoon, and by Wednesday a garden appears that looks as if it’s been there for years. The photos below show the progression building Meadows Farms’ garden at the Capital Home and Garden Show in Chantilly,…
Planning a garden pond
Every garden should have a pond! I have five, six if the wet weather, dirt bottom pond is included, and nothing in the garden, not the hellebores or irises, the mahonias or Japanese maples, provides greater enjoyment. Of course I started with one (as you most likely will), then on a whim added a second pond…
And the winner is …..
The Perennial Plant Association has selected False Indigo, Baptisia australis as Perennial of the Year for 2010. This not a hot, newest introduction, but an old time, sturdy native. In my garden baptisia was set up for failure. The subsoil excavated to build my large swimming pond was mounded on the lower side of the…
After the blizzard
Most traces of almost two feet of snow three weeks back have disappeared from the neighborhood. Except in my garden! A stand of mature trees bordering the southwest shades the property so that snow and ice linger for weeks after the rest of the world has thawed. The roots nestled below this thick white blanket…
Slob proof!
Today a thoughtful home and garden marketing firm that I deal with sent me a paperback version of an interior decorating book titled Slob Proof! Real-Life Design Solutions. I’ll pass it along to my wife. I’m eagerly awaiting the garden version. I need help! In my garden an obelisk lies on its side, wrapped in a tangle of…
Blooming today, mush tomorrow
At zero degrees Celsius (thirty two degrees Fahrenheit) and below, intracellular freezing causes membrane damage and leakage of cellular contents. Or something like that. My slightly less technical explanation, one day you have flowers in the garden, the next mush. On this November weekend the trees are bare in this northern Virginia garden, but a…
The garden pond in Autumn
I woke Saturday morning to driving rain, then a windy pause, followed by leaves raining from red maples in the forest at the border of the garden. I had been watching closely, I thought, for the turning of the the leaves so I could cover the ponds with netting, but I guess I wasn’t attentive enough. This is a sad day,…
That’s the way the world goes ’round
We’ve hired a fellow to rid our attic of squirrels. The pesky tree rats have chewed through wires, destroyed a heat pump something-or-other, and are generally making a nuisance of themselves. Thus far, a skunk and possum have been captured in the live traps, but no squirrels. There is plenty of space on this property for…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 