An azalea this spring:
lilies, through the protective netting [baby fishes]
Sanzo and Maddy
And the best shot I could get of Goku and, possibly, Ari. As a new pond, freshly poured this spring, we do still have a bit of an algae issue, but it’s improving. The fishes are shy, but gaining courage.
Hi,
Can’t click on the pics, get an error, just so you know.
The links from the pictures are set to take you to the WordPress attachment page, which is automatically created when you insert the image into the post. On your older posts that works. I don’t know why it doesn’t work here. I do notice the format of those links has changed. The first picture here links to https://www.cherryh.com/WaveWithoutAShore/?attachment_id=8134 but in older posts that link would look more like https://www.cherryh.com/WaveWithoutAShore/some-new-pix/P1200022/ (which doesn’t exist either, sad to say). I suspect something’s been changed in the settings somewhere since the last time you posted photos, or something is different about this post that’s triggered a bug.
Yes—I don’t know why enlargement isn’t working.
The flowers are beautiful, though, just as they are, and it’s lovely to see the fishes beginning to settle in.
Here are the links to the large size images. I got them from the source HTML of the page. I’m not sure what the problem with WP is, though.
It won’t let me post four links in one message without sending it for moderation.
https://www.cherryh.com/WaveWithoutAShore/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/P1200022-1080×1618.jpg
https://www.cherryh.com/WaveWithoutAShore/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/P1200062-1080×721.jpg
https://www.cherryh.com/WaveWithoutAShore/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/P1200051-1080×721.jpg
https://www.cherryh.com/WaveWithoutAShore/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/P1200172-1080×608.jpg
Ahhh, Thank you kindly.
I’m sorry I don’t have a solution for the photo enlargement bug.
Instead, how about an off-topic humor bit?
So, it’s after 1:00am here, and I woke up to hear kids outside playing. They sound like the usual neighbor kids, mostly pre-teens and teens. There’s the moderate laughing, yelling, and boisterous noise of kids having fun, whether they’re in the pool (I can’t tell) or just hanging out. It’s not enough to be really obnoxious. It’s just, to me at least, odd. They’re not hurting anything or anyone. No loud music either, of whatever genre or language. Music at modest volume happens around here sometimes, even at night, but not usually this late unless on weekends, and that’s usually the adults.
However, it -is- summer and it -is- nearly in the low 80’s at night and the mid to upper 90’s in the daytime, normal summer weather here. So I can sort of understand. And parents / other adults around here work and live around the clock, nighttime too. It makes my insomnia look positively normal.
I am actually OK with the kids having a good time as long as they’re not making too much noise and no one’s getting hurt / into trouble.
But I kinda had to wonder — What, did I land in this colony of very fun-loving urban vampires? Semi-Teenage Wild-Kid Nocturnals? Buffy: The Next Gen, Pool Party / Slumberless Party Cool Vampire Edition? — OK, no, I really don’t know. 😀
I’m amused, only slightly annoyed, and wondering how long they’ll be up. I’m not in the mood to throw on some swim shorts and head out there and dive in, but if/when it gets hot enough, oh, I just might!
So I live in the weird, mildly partying, nocturnal but mostly harmless, generally safe apartment complex. OK, I can deal with that. Could be worse; which I wouldn’t want. So I’m good with this. :shrugs:
So I’m up for a bit. Dunno what I’ll do, but I’m up. May write some.
Whereas I got some idjits in the townhouses next door setting off fireworks after midnight last night. (I suspect there were beers involved beforehand.)
And the fish pic is not Ari, but Goku, Sanzo, and Ichigo, three anime fishes. 😉 We’re still looking for a good Banichi or Jago. We have a Maddy (a silver butterfly-fin), and another pale white butterfly-fin who looks as if her side fins are going to turn coppery gold—we don’t know her name yet, but we’ll find one. We thought we’d lost her (we couldn’t get the water clear, and she kept hiding) but there she was. Which is a good thing: she’s not going to have the pure silver color—but she’s certainly pretty. She could even turn matsuba, or having a grey outline of every scale, but I don’t think she’s likely to do it. Color will probably stay much as it is. The Ichigo (redhead) fish is apt to be much more changeable as he grows, and no knowing how that one will turn out over time.
Oh, good! Glad to hear there will be a guild member.
Just noticed… You know Euphorbia, aka gopher spurge, is probably not the best thing to plant at pond’s edge? “All parts of the plant, including the seeds and roots are poisonous. Handling may cause skin irritation as the plant produces latex. – Wikipedia” One way or another some of it is going to get into the pond.
It does—but doesn’t seem to bother the fishes, who occasionally tear off bits. We have several plantings of it, and it’s hardy and makes difficult footing for predators,—but we did make one hospital run when Jane rubbed her eyes while pruning it, not knowing its nature. She took no harm.
Can’t be doing them any good. Maybe something else?
Got any ideas? Anything we plant loves the water so much it runs amok. We planted some equisetum and the darned stuff turns up everywhere. Iris, yes, but that gets whacked back because we can’t see the water. Juniper has to be beaten back with a stick and cut back, besides being too tall, and others, sea thrift, sedum and such, are too low to be much protection.
I do have one, but it would take some hunting for, careful selection, and a trustworthy purveyor: a dwarf, clumping bamboo. (Never a “running” Phylostachis bamboo!) One doesn’t normally associate bamboo with high desert conditions, but you’ve got localized humidity in mitigation. Fargesia species are cold hardy in Zone 5. The question is: are any small enough? I imagine you was 3-4′.
Some varieties are quite small. I’ve sees some, years ago, that has canes thinner than a pencil; golden, as I recall. Goog shows some called “ground covers”.
I’ve just discovered “Bamboo Garden Nursery” in North Plains, OR, 10-15mi from me. I’ll get back to you on this!
I’ve just talked to a nice lady there, and a selected Fargesia sp. may well be an option. Not perfect, but an option. Spokane’s Zone 5 is likely to keep them to 3-4′, and they can be “topped”. They’d prefer morning sun and afternoon shade. (Who doesn’t?) They would need a barrier from the pond liner. They do spread (as most things would), but with Fargesias “5 inches/yr not 5 feet/yr”! This place has “rigid”, but curvable (that’s a peninsula?), polyurethane 2′ & 3′ deep. (You’d probably need 2′, but that’d still be a difficult install with the pond filled!) It’d direct spread away and to the sides. You could “root prune” every few years. (Even divide the clump at the edges and trade plants.)
I can visit the place for more complete info if you think this IS an option. Personally, I think it’d go well with the esthetic of the koi, and it would tend to make very good fencing! YMMV.
Taking pictures through water is kinda tricky anyway. I would imagine algae adds another order of magnitude of difficulty. I love the water lillies
Read your comment on the moon landing on the Tor.com website. We have a video of it because my dad took a 16 mm home movie of the TV broadcast. It’s up in my mom’s hall closet somewhere.
I hadn’t remembered it was the anniversary until seeing it here, and then I looked for the Tor.com article. Thank you!
I was all of three years old and a few months, sitting in front of our huge old color TV in my footie pajamas, possibly with a blanket, Linus-style, 😉 well past ordinary bedtime, I suspect.
I’m fairly sure my memories are jumbled with later moon landings and TV retrospectives. But mom and dad and I and our family dog all watched, phenomenal world history in the making.
Paul, i’m out of ‘nests’ for a reply—the bamboo would be lovely but our neighbor has threatened (joking) our lives if we plant bamboo—he apparently had a bad experience with the previous owner. And its roots would pierce the vital pond liner. otoh, having some on the side farthest from the neighbor would be neat. I’ve wanted bamboo.
I certainly understand your neighbor–planting a “running” bamboo on a city lot is an act of aggression that calls for the most extreme retaliation. Even “clumping” bamboo is sometimes best in containers.
My guess is you want something to keep the raccoons from fishing from the pond bank? This certainly should do that. Personally, I’d definitely root out all that Euphorbia. I could round up mine, but no water was near. Yellow Flag Iris would love the moisture, and also provide a barrier. In Oregon they’re classed as a pest and can’t be sold commercially. Their rhizomes would probably be attracted to the liner also.
I’ll go out on a limb and suggest Rhododendron atlanticum, sometimes called the “swamp honeysuckle” back home on the east coast. White to pale pink honeysuckle-like tubular blossoms are intensely fragrant! Upright habit, deciduous, stoloniferous, so it will slowly spread unaggressively, tolerates damp soil to some extent. Hardy to -15F. Not a bad companion to that R calendulaceum/flammeum hybrid I see in the background–a distant cousin. That’s something to consider, if’n I do say so myself!
Fargesia are from the Tibet-Yunnan border mountains. They’d handle (your) cold, but not heat and humidity–you’ve one but not the other. The nursery does not recomment them for planting in the “South East”. This “Black Cherry”, http://www.bamboogarden.com/Fargesia%20sp.%20Jiuzhaigou%20IV.htm, seems to be their smalest. 7′-9′ without pruning, but your climate might help keep it in check.
For the smaller Fargesia near the pond, you would have to dig down 2′ installing the impervious control barrier. Then root prune with a spade every couple years.
If the iris needs to be cut down because it obscures the water, I suspect that 3-4 feet tall bamboo would be too tall as well.
How about Frittillaria Meleagris? It’s a sort of smallish bulb that looks like garlic, likes growing beside ponds, makes a clump of thin longish spindly leaves about a foot tall, with nodding chequered dark-purplish-red or white flowers (in Dutch it’s name is Lapwing-flower, because its blooms are said to resemble the eggs of those meadowbirds, and they’re both found in old hay meadows; its English name is Snakeshead Frittillary IIRC). It’s not invasive, but nowadays a moderately rare meadow/bog plant in the wild, though cultivated bulbs are available each autumn. I like it, it looks good at pondsides without being too intrusive. It disappears underground a few months after flowering, and comes up again in the spring if you leave the bulbs in the ground.
It won’t keep raccoons away, though.
Another typical pond-edge plant that flowers a bit later would be Caltha (Kingcup or Marsh marigold, C.Palustris is the common one around here); maybe you’ve got some of those plants already? Those need moist feet, make a large clump (like the Euphorbia) that is a little bit more than a foot high; they might seed themselves out along waterways if they like the circumstances but are easy to pull up.
One that I like for autumn color is Sedum Spectabile (Heaven’s Keys, in Dutch). That too forms a usually fairly neat fleshy clump in summer, maybe a foot and a half high, and mostly disappears underground in winter. The flowers are favorites with butterflies in autumn, and the dried flower caps look good with snow on them in winter, while the hollow dry stems make good winter hiding places for insects. In spring it starts growing afresh from the ground. It doesn’t like boggy soil, and if it’s in too heavy shade might need some support to stay a neat clump and not sprawl over – it prefers sun.
You could plant the Frittillaria and Sedum very close together; by the time the Sedum grows large the Frittillaria will be starting to disappear underground.
All those sound very nice; in North America, some of them might be a little hard to come by.
In our summer lake, we always had a clump of arrowhead blooming. They weren’t very invasive and had three pointed leaves and three lobed white flowers. You can get them in a variety of leaf patterns.
Water hyacinth can be VERY invasive, but in your climate will likely die off in winter; if you like it you will probably have to winter some over in a pot. It will give the koi something to hide under, and has blue blossoms on stalks.
Sorry, I though most garden plants have been exchanged fairly freely within the northern temperate zone, before the present restrictions were put in; as these are old and common kinds of plants I thought you’d probably have something similar in your area.
As for the frittillary bulbs, I see their packages for sale each autumn among the tulips, daffodils and hyacinths; as I know our bulbs get exported all across the globe I didn’t realise that some of the less abundant kinds might not make it that far.
Certainly, if you’ve got local alternatives those would clearly be better, both ecologically and because they will obviously be better adapted to your local conditions.
I checked and am not sure about the Fritillary (I remember seeing it in a flower book once when I was young, and getting it confused with a butterfly with a similar name, the Frillitary) being locally available. However, the sedum and the marsh marigold ought to be around — unless they have been classified as nuisance plants! I believe we have sedums of that type growing wild in the dampish patches around our marshes.
We get ONE hyacinth in the early summer (May), it and multiplies like crazy all summer. We take them all out and compost them in the late fall. They do provide good shade for the pond, but wow are they prolific !
You’d be in less trouble trying to bring cocaine into Florida than Water Hyacinth!
Entirely on another subject; my Vista machine is no longer able to get some things like Facebook and AOL Mail. I am thinking of a new machine, but I have never set up an new machine, and all of the windows ones I see for sale are Windows 10, Chrome, or Mac. I’d like to be able to transfer my photos, bookmarks, etc. Please advise me! (Or maybe better put as,”HELP”!)
I’d say just buy a new os, but a computer born running Vista is probably too old to run these well. It’s real easy to transfer photos and such. Bookmarks might not transfer: hand-note those, or get a screen print.
Here’s the deal: you have an old OS (operating system). You probably have some old programs that use it, and may not work on a new OS.
The good news is, so long as these old programs store your data as .jpg, .gif, .doc or .txt or .wpd, these formats can be read. Data doesn’t obsolesce until no program can read it.
You can also get a handful of thumb drives (one of mine is 32 gig, which is as large as the hard drive on some older machines) and literally is the size of a man’s thumbnail. You copy your files onto that (treat it as yet one more drive) — I’m assuming you have USB port? Give us some more data on the files you need to move — the dot-whatever. Are they .jpg? Then we can tell you what can read them. Stick to a windows machine for the smoothest transition and a way of handling that should be more transparent to you. (my opinion only). Tell us what your photo program is called, and what your files are named. (the dot thing).Tell us about your text files, and that program. Then we can make some specific recommendations. You might shop Dell refurbs or check out Costco or Sam’s for deals—the computers you get there are often fine for general light use. If you have more specific needs, it might be another recommendation.
I do have some .wps files, but I know how to convert those to .doc. They will not look so elegant, but they will have their info complete.
.jpg? gif? Name the programs you need to save data from.
Microsoft word/ office; my cookbooks, the recipes I have made up or altered to my own tastes.
Just ordered HP 15-f222wm 15.6″ Notebook – Pentium N3540 2.16 GHz – 4 GB RAM – 500 GB HDD, which is somewhat better than the specs on the one I have now. I fear since every time the spousal unit has ‘updated’ my computer or gotten me a new one he has kindly deleted all photos, writings, and bookmarks on the grounds that if they were important, I’d have them memorized or in hard copy.
@Tommie
My thoughts:
– You’ll probably adjust to Windows 10 fairly quickly.
– Your old computer will still be available. Keep it and don’t delete anything from it. You can always go back and get stuff from it if necessary.
– It’s probably worth paying someone from a local computer service to back up and transfer your files and programs for you, and set up your new notebook. It will be an expense, but it will be worth it to get it done right by someone who knows what he’s doing.
@Tommie — A suggestion — Do yourself a big favor for all your future files: Buy an external hard drive or a USB flash drive (they look like packs of chewing gum). You can get a 2 TB external hard drive these days for around $80 and a USB flash drive of 64 GB or so for, I want to say around $35 or less, I haven’t looked in a while, you might get a better deal than that. For photos, the little SD cards (check the kind your digital camera takes) are cheaper now too, and you can get one or two SD cards, or one per project if you take a large number of photos, and swap them out of your camera, plus use them for storing your photos. Most notebooks and desktops now have an SD card reader, and the USB flash drive and ext. HD both use USB ports. (Look for USB 3.0 drives.)
The external hard drive and/or the flash drive are then where you’d store all your documents: writing, recipes, artwork, photos, any files you create and want to keep — rather than the notebook’s hard drive. (Or else you have to back up from the notebook to the external(s) regularly, say weekly, diligently.) These are very good options. You can pack either or both drives in your notebook bag and you’re good to go. If you want extra protection for the external HD, there are padded or hard-shell cases for around $6 to $12 bucks. The ext. HD is roughly the size of a standard paperback and pretty rugged. The flash drive can fit in your purse or pocketbook, on a keychain or on a lanyard around your neck.
These are really better options than risking the loss of your files whenever your computer needs an update or if it needs repairs, and it means that if the notebook’s internal hard drive has a problem, your important files, those you create, are not likely to be lost.
I regularly use an external hard drive, and sometimes use a USB flash drive for portability, such as if I need to use someone else’s computer or printer, or transfer files directly.
Any or all of these options would give you huge peace of mind and ease of use. The drives simply plug into a USB port, Windows does an install of a driver if needed, and you are good to go. Unplugging is easy too: You right-click to eject the drive and then unplug it physically, or else you shut down your notebook and then your hard drive and unplug it. The flash drives, you don’t even need to turn them off, it’s all solid-state flash memory, no moving parts. — You probably already use a USB flash drive, but I’m advocating for keeping your data exclusively on a drive external to your notebook. Another advantage: Anything truly valuable for work or personal projects, you can make a backup and lock it up somewhere safe.
Re frittolaria, I tried it in Oklahoma…one of those bargain bulb outfits had it. It came up, but heat got it. And it can top 100 here. That’s 37 C. I will give a look at it. And the bamboo. We need what we put down to stay sort of Euphorbia height, ie, about 8″, because those are the viewing spots.
Frittillarias, at least the Meleagris ones that I grow, disappear underground a month or two after flowering (the leaves die off) – as they flower in March-May, it might look as if summer heat killed them. They should return next spring, if they survived. We do have occasional (rare) summer heatwave days with temperatures of 33-35 degrees centigrade, so not that far off your 37°C; but temperatures over 30°C never last more than a week around here. If the plants have safely retreated into their bulbs for the summer, I’d expect that shouldn’t kill them.
Off topic: you might like this National Geographic article about the geography of the Spokane area.
Sansevieria ‘Dwarf Laurentii’?
Now those are MEAN plants!
CJ, what about strawberries? They wouldn’t obscure any views.
Sounds reasonable to me, as long as no one in the household is allergic to them. Edible and pretty!
We have a few on the waterfall mound, but I don’t think they’d stop a raccoon. We have one the size of a Victorian hassock…raccoon, not strawberry plant. Leaves footprints the size of a chimpanzee’s.
Which do you want, plants high enough, strong enough, to be a barrier along the edge of the pond, sacrificing some of the view from that side of the pond, or something that is no barrier to the view? If both, the only thing I can think of is a spike strip! Broken glass?
These are the viewing areas, and it remains a problem. We do have, beside the euphorbia, some plants given us by a very kind Shejicon attendee which is somewhat reminiscent of rhubarb or spinach…
Hardiness zone 7 here so I can’t offer any specific suggestions, but I have a general method of plant acquisition that might help. In my neighbourhood there is what is known as “bush” around, also vacant lots and similar unused space. Gardeners divide their perennials, load the surplus into the wheelbarrow and trundle it down to the bush to dump. The plants, already acclimated, are available for adoption by whomever passes by. Over the years, and in several houses, I have acquired by this method: lily of the valley, hostas, moss, trilliums and day lilies. (mind you the trilliums may have been the wild ones, hence illegal)
Paul’s comments about the conflict between view and raccoon deterrent should be given proper consideration. I have known people to buy the type of spike strip for repelling perching pigeons and burying it among ground cover to keep cats from digging in the flower beds. That stuff should make any raccoon Take a Step Away From the Pond.
For someone that large, one might consider a full place setting complete with finger bowl and candles!
Teasel, there is a nursery that specializes in trillium.
https://www.plantdelights.com/collections/trillium