Have you included a pool or aviary in your garden plans?

[claudine]

Philphine, I love your pond, it's so beautiful! It must be very nice to sit there and look at the water, I would love to have something like this in my garden Thank you for sharing the picture.

 

[Jewell]

Philphine, I love your decking with the surrounding brickwork. Don't worry about the fill-in. It is always a challenge to decide on what plants. Then the plants especially perennials need a couple of years to come into their own.

See you included a fire pit. Looks like a you can have lots of choices for a great area to enjoy the outdoors

 

[Philphine]

thanks to you both. to be truthful, i almost never sit out there. when i'm out there i'm pacing back and forth looking at things and wondering what to do next, or actually working whatever project i'm fooling with at that time. the fire pit's only been lit a few times, and not at all since i built the pond. i'm thinking if i do the fire will have to be really low and well controlled.

 

[claudine]

If I were you, I would probably sit there, eat there and maybe even sleep there. It seems like such a lovely place and I really love being around water. I definitely should add a pond to my garden too. A big one

 

[Shellyann36]

I don't have anything of that nature now but our plans are to add a bee hive, chickens and aquaponics when we get our tax money back in 2014. For the aquaponics I am thinking more along the lines of an inside set up but one never knows what will happen in the future. I am not opposed to a garden pond either. We would like to raise talapia for consumption. We love chickens and ducks and have had both in the past. I love watching them both run around the yards and gardens.

 

[Jewell]

Here are a few pics of some of the ponds now and earlier this summer. This first is a small pond between the house and the garage. It is not big enough to support fish, but no mosquito problems. Dragon fly larva ate the small fish and keep the water clear of insects. The heron is our latest diner of gold fish. The last is a large planter pot set in the ground with no hole. The blue pot next to it holds my curly rush, but just got its spring hair cut.

 

[TheCrazyPlantLady]

They are gorgeous, Jewel. And what a great picture of the heron!

 

[Philphine]

sleeping outside is actually somewhat possible for me. i was just thinking about it a few weeks back. weather or not i'd really do it... ehhh...

the pic has a kind of overhead look because i was up on an unfinished deck, about 12' off the ground, with no outside stairway up to it. being so high up, it's hard to get a good angle to see up there standing in the yard, and there are trees along the fence line so you can't see up there very well standing some distance away in a neighboring yard (it occured to me as i was writting this, i forgot about the play fort out in the yard. it's both high enough and far away enough for a decent view, but a little camo netting would solve that f i wanted)..

it gets almost no shade through the day, so recently i found some small pop up mini shelter things. they're just big enough, i think, to hold a round outside lounger i have. so this time of year, when the trees are leafed out well, i could put the lounger in the pop up to be pretected from bugs and give sleeping a try.

but like i said, it's unfinished (no rails around it), and part of finishing it would be an outside stair put back up. my actual future plan is the put one of the loungers in one of the shelters, and i could see maybe dozing off if the conditions were right. i don't see myself making plans to sleep up there though.

 

[justusforus]

I have a small fountain and birdbaths for my aviary friends. I also have perches I have incorporated in to the surrounding fences.

 

[claudine]

Jewell, I love the planter pot in the last picture, it was such a great idea to set it in the ground! I must make something like this too, thank you for the inspiration! It really looks wonderful.

 

[Pat]

I would like to add a pond to my yard, this is a nice picture of what I have in mind.

 

[Philphine]

this winter was really hard on my pond. both filters cracked, i have a hole in my and don't know how it got there (and since i don't know how, i don't know if there might be others). plus it's been so wet the dirt under the liner stayed soft when it wasn't frozen, so the rocks along the edges have shifted and some have fallen into the pond. got my work cut out for me once it warms up.

 

[ongongong]

It looks wonderful,Jewel! I loved the ponds and the Heron is gorgeous.And about the pond thing, I live in an apartment so there's not question of an outside garden let alone a pond garden! But I do plan to have one when I make my own dream garden

 

[Pat]

My yard does not have any thing like a pond or fountain. It would be nice to have a fountain although I would be concerned about attracting bugs to the water. A small pond is also a nice addition but the same problem would exist bugs. I really do not want to have any more bugs in the yard than I need to have.