First lily flower of the season

That lily is just gorgeous, what a pretty color. How big is your pond, I'm sure you mentioned it but I can't remember. Love the birdhouse too, that's really a neat one. We have very little blooming up here yet, had frost last night. The roses are so pretty, do they smell as good as they look?

Those fountains look so cool and it is so very hot out! Great yard junk Edog and you do photograph it well.

it almost doesn't look real it's so pretty. i love flowers. recently i was searching for the source of some wonderful flowers. i could smell them but couldn't figure out which ones were the culprit. it turned out to be the tires on my friend's freshly detailed vehicle ?? who thought that up?

kim

Hi a rael nice setup,

I love the pond and the lily.greatflowers,
jack
yorkshire uk

Nice Earth- Dang I have not even thought about my pond- I guess I better get my butt in gear and get it cleaned up!

Cool, I like the lilly. But I like the clematis vine even more. You have some nice color in your yard.

Hey Edog,Here's a phew pic's of Texas Dawn and some of my pond under construction (for almost 10 years)!!








A SMALL WATERFALL


ONE OF MY LITTLE FRIENDS HIDING UNDER THE LILYPAD


THIS MUST BE ONE OF HIS OFFSPRING



SOME OF THE FISHIES


KIND OF AN OVERVIEW OF THE WHOLE POND.THE OLD DRIED UP STUMP FROM A TREE I CUT DOWN.LOOKS LIKE DRIFTWOOD?

That's it.The pond was about twice this size but it got to be too much for me to handle so I downsized.It used to have 2 little brooks and 3 waterfalls coming down from 2 smaller ponds.

Some day I may even finish it! My wife says it's like Disneyland,,,,Always adding on or changing something but I enjoy fooling with it.Hey,,,,,,,,What kid doesn't like to play in water?? LOL

connrock

Hey Edog,
I never heard of the Lillie's that change colors,,,,,,,they must be something else!
A few years back I grew a blue lily but it was a tropical.I tried to over winter it in the basement but it still died on me.The flowers were real small,,,,,about 2-1/2" at best but it was pretty and quite unique.

Being that you belong to a pond forum you prolly know more then I do about ponds and the plants but,,,,,,,,,,,

Every 2-3 years you have to cut back your Lillie's.You take them out of their pots and cut the tubers so that you have only 1-2 tubers that are replanted to the outside on the pots with the bottom of the tuber facing down and to the center of the pot.If you don't thin them out some varieties will just get stunted or over grow the pots and try to make it on there own,rooting in the pond itself.

Here's a pretty good read about the string algae:

Algae outbreaks are a sign that:

You are overfeeding your fish. (90% of all algae problems are traced to this) Big, fat and submarine-sized Koi are what we all like to see. If you want to overfeed your Koi to insure you get maximum growth you will just have to live with a constant algae problem. Koi are little pigs and they will never refuse food, People who love their fish really enjoy feeding them. It is VERY hard to cut back on the amount of food you feed your fish once you have gotten into a habit. Feed your fish sparingly to prevent ammonia spikes. Twice a day is the maximum and only for what they can consume in 5 minutes of top feeding.

You may have too many fish for the size of your pond. The time-tested rule of thumb is to have no more than 1" of fish per 1 square foot of pond surface area for new ponds or water gardens. You can increase that to 2"-3" for established ponds with active bacteria colonies in your biofilter and a healthy plant support system. In time you may find that you can even have more fish. If you have no excess nitrates in your pond you can keep adding Koi to find the edge of what you can support. But, Koi grow and as they grow it will put more pressure on your bio-filtering system. Allow room for Koi growth and keep an eye on any algae outbreak as your first sign that something isn't right.

You don't have enough pond plants to consume the excess nitrates. The backbone of all of the submerged oxygenator plants is the Anacharis "Ann-Ack-Er-Iss" and EVERY pond or water garden should have plenty of these growing! Insure you have a 1"-2" bed of gravel in your pond, on top of the liner, and plant several of these every square feet. The second most important plant group is the floating oxygenators. All other plants such as your marginal plants (plants around the edge of your pond that are on shelves) and your showcase plants like lilies and lotus are add-ons and don't contribute as much to your water quality as your submerged and floating plants do.

Your water pump and/or biofilter is overwhelmed and needs to be improved, or add another biofilter/pump system to your present configuration. The first thing to do if your are convinced your system is overwhelmed, and the above factors are not the problem, is to replace your skimmer with a Savio skimmer and run some UV light sterilizers to kill algae blooms before they propagate.

Start a colony of Japanese Trapdoor Snails. The little critters eat their body weight or more every day. What a great deal huh? The are one of the few breeds that are specifically intended for watergardening applications.


Gotta run,,,,,

Time to make the donuts!!!!

TTYL

Tom

Here is a pic of my first lily I planted 2 years ago. This flower is a good 8/9" across. I will take another pic of the same flower after it turns white, should be in 2/3 days.