2019 pond and garden

Catching up on Gardening

Posted by lorivertin on

The koi have been pretty boring – they all look pretty and eat a lot. Feeding time is always a race and a lot of jostling.

feeding time for the koi

Summer goes by fast with all of our projects. We have had some new windows and a new front door installed, the painter has a few more days to finish his work. Since the koi are pretty low maintenance we have finally gotten the chance to catch up on some of our gardening chores. Some of the plants we bought earlier in the year dictated a new arrangement of plants around them. I decided to plant more native grasses which are much easier to maintain.

We removed all of the peonies and paired this French Blue Scotch Pine with azaleas. We plan to leave more space around this tree to be able to see it’s shape as it grows.
Cleaned up our path to the lower pond.
new flowering kale in an annual garden the front porch
A new fern garden near the lower pond. Hopefully all of these are Zone 4 hardy.
The dahlia garden has started to bloom.
Changed the steps up to the pond so that I can see the French Blue Scotch Pine and Macopin Dwarf White Pine more easily. We replaced the Siberian iris patch with native grass “Prairie Dropseed”.
Created a new siberian iris patch and finished the line with some native grass “blonde ambition blue grama”. Still need to replace stones and mulch.
early evening koi
Last year’s plantings with the steps have done well.
We put up a Purple Martin house for next year. We’re hoping it will help with the Japanese beetles and mosquitos.
We have a lot of mosquitos – my daughter has set up some citronella candles and lavender to read outside.

It’s hard to believe that we only have a few more weeks before the koi will have to come inside for the winter. The pond builder hasn’t started on the garage pool but maybe next month. Meanwhile, we will enjoy a few more weeks of puttering in our garden.