Pond revamp

Dear Huey, I am not impressed with the weather, please get your act together and save the high temperatures for summer :/ 

Meanwhile, I photographed and then completely neglected to post photos of my pond revamp from perhaps a month ago. I'm shifting the old bath out from behind the retaining wall and reclaiming that as garden. I've invested in a whopping great terracotta pot for the new pond. We painted on some kind of black, tar-like (in appearance, consistency and smell) waterproofing gloop on the interior, and plugged up the hole with concrete (I say 'we', I mean I got D to do it). 

I made a 'basket' from chicken wire for the lotus so that it would fit into the pot, along with a pile of cow manure and some extra soil and water-plant fertiliser tablets. 

My helper 'helped' as usual. The only plants in there are the dormant lotus (please come back, lotus!) and a nearly-dormant water lily. 

We piled a whole heap of broken terracotta (ex-plant pots) on top of the soil to stop it all floating out. Then, filled it up with rainwater, popped in the fish from the old pond, then sat back and waited. The lily has just sent out a few new leaves with this spate of hot weather, so there a plus at least. Mostly however, right now it's growing very un-photogenic algae. 

Santa Rosa and friends

Eating Santa Rosa plums (have loads)

And the Moorpark apricots (not many this year)

Here are the lotus seedlings with their 'coin leaves' in their temporary growing-on home

Small boy in a big garden  

Yellow cherry tomatoes best for throwing, apparently (variety label lost)

Three x new-ish chicken bottoms (actually four, one not in shot)

New pond from the old bath. Sorry about the green, wrong setting on the phone! 

Growing lotus from seed.

Some time back I bought four lotus seeds from EBay with the intention of growing them into plants (or trying to, anyway). I finally got around to trying this out about a week ago. Following some online instructions, I filed a hole through the seed coat of each seed with sandpaper: these buggers are really hard! Then they were popped into a yogurt container with lukewarm water (filtered water, for what it's worth) and left them on a sunny windowsill, changing the water each day. Overnight the seeds swell up from sultana-sized, to grape sized. About three days later I was very excited to see the first green shoots peeking out. One seed, however, has not sprouted yet, and may not at all. 

I was astounded to see the shoots had grown a full inch taller by the end of the day! 

A day after this the shoots were poking out of the water, and it's time to repot them into fertilised soil and put them into the pond. It's pretty hot outside now, so the plants should love it. 

Lotus at last

I love my bargain and rescue plants, but I can safely say my new lotus plants are not amongst them. In fact, it was a stretch to spend so much on two plants, but I've wanted my own lotus for so long I decided to go for it (after a lot of dithering). 

I bought two smaller cultivars: the red Bunga Baby, and white Angel Wings. The tubers spent a fortnight or so in two buckets of water, waiting for the new rootlets to appear. 

[Temporary glamorous home in a bucket.]

Then I potted up Bunga Baby into a very swish container: that garden stalwart, a polystyrene box, filled with garden soil, bought compost, seamungus pellets and a dash of blood and bone. I carefully covered it over with a load of all rocks from the garden do all the soil didn't wash out. Then I put it into the pond (giant black plastic tub) and walked away, whereupon while I wasn't watching, the whole lot flipped over and dumped the contents into the bottom of the pond. Oops. I decided to just leave it there, since it was covered pretty well still, and now I had a spare box again. 

Then I repeated the process, with the addition of some Dynamic Lifter I found in the shed, remembered to take some photos this time, and also remembered to keep an eye on the box as it sank into the pond. 

[New rootlets, pinky white.]

[Tubers like great white worms in the soil.] 

Fingers crossed for some flowers this year, or at least masses of lovely leaves. 

A touch of zen

I have finally made it to Tofukuji temple in Kyoto. It's famous for its zen gardens, but I loved the wooden walks over the maples, the unexpected bog garden, and the pond full of sacred lotus more than any raked gravel beds.