Last photos! The arbutus is doing great!!
I am a little worries that the damage it suffered from rutting deer last year will lead to disease. 🤞
But the hazelnut tree is budding!
#poolPond #Gardening #Spring #PortAlberni #Home #Pond #PandemicPond
rocks moved!
Managed to move the last of the larger rock off the blue tarp and spread it around the top of the pond. A tiny hope of mine is that this could be enough to stabilize the liner so that when I empty it of its (quickly algae-ifying) rain water, it doesn't bulge out from the sides. I doubt I will be that lucky so I will have to fill it with city water (chlorinated) to keep the algae and mosquitoes at bay while preserving the shape of the liner until the ground around it hardens up.
The rainy season is winding down!
thankfully i didnt have to use any city water to clean the rocks as I moved them. Just used the hose emptying water from the other ponds.
#poolPond #Gardening #Spring #PortAlberni #Home #Pond #PandemicPond
Things are growing in the backyard despite the continued #poolPond chaos.
Rhubarb is sprouting fast. A daffodil held on near the hazelnut tree even with all the disturbances.
And the young plum tree is budding!
I am back to moving rocks for the pool pond lol.
I should have dealt with pond Mountain dirt pile this time last year. That was a mistake on my part. Now I need to move this rock to another part of the yard so that we can get a small bobcat excavator in to spread out the mountain and return some order to the rest of the yard.
And this my friends is why our #pandemicpond and #poolpond will never, ever, be connected to the house water system! Directly or with a ‘sensor' system, never. Ever.
If the pond looks a little low... you top it up from a rain barrel, or a tap... or you let it go low and wait for rain.
$6000 water bill is INSANE. Our quarterly bill is usually under $150 in the winter and under $300 in the summer months.
#water #waste #pond #DIY #gardening
https://cheknews.ca/saanich-couple-hit-with-nearly-6000-water-bill-after-hidden-leak-1290221/
the #pandemicpond is nice in the fall. Always full. Full of all stages of plants. Still attracts birds for a bath. The fish are happy.
Ill need to get my trusty strainer and retrievve the leaves and things before too many sink to the bottom.
#pondlife #gardening #fall #autumn
#pandemicpond and #poolpond (sort of) update!
After the substantial completion of the new fence and new front gate I had to do a little recovery work on the front pond to restore its overflow. The builders skillfully augered two post holes between the buried wire for the 120V outlet, the pond wire and piping, the back of the pond lining, and the buried drainage pipe!
Very well done.
It left a bit of a clay earth mess but I took the opportunity to fully bury the larger pipe that I installed last summer (2024) so that’ll keep it warmer this winter and cooler next summer. I rescued the little rock flowers and replanted them with a bit of new and old rock. There was already a birdie back in the pond for a bath before I even finished! @stephanie
The process ended up washing in some silt, so the pond is murky now, but I took the opportunity to flush one of the bog barrels for the first time since installing them last year. Not enough water in the rain barrel to flush both so I’ll do that next weekend if we get some rain. A wheelbarrow full of cedar woodchips would be good too.
Oh I also put pea-gravel around the base of the posts nearest the pond so there was no dirt up against them. Should keep them drier and rot-free.
Feel like we’re slowly nearing a stable end point for all the projects!
And a quick update on the big project.
The main pond is drying out! I'll let it dry today and then put the liner over tomorrow morning and start working on the plumbing asap so I can get the pebble in there to weigh it all down!
Note little dig marks in the filter pebble where I stole some for the pandemic pond.
#pandemicpond #poolpond #backyardproject #diy #ponds #gardening #watergarden #bloomscrolling #goldfish
Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸
