Hi everybody, sorry to leave you all hanging for so long, but I've been recuperating from all the cuts I received a week ago, while tying up my ornamental grasses!

Not really, but I did manage to get quite a few cuts, doing this and other weekend chores. You see, I remembered to wear protective gloves while tying up the grasses. However, I did not remember to wear long sleeves! So I must stress to the rest of you, if you're planning to tie up your grasses, rather than cutting them back for the winter, make sure you wear proper protection. The fine blades of the grass can wreak havoc on your skin. And while it doesn't sound that bad, imagine 20-30 little paper cuts all up and down your arms!
Anyway, I choose to tie up my grasses rather than cut them back. Either option will not harm the grasses in any way (it's pretty difficult to kill grass). I like the way they look throughout the fall and into the winter. And as I've stated before, in the spring when I do cut them back, I save the cuttings, tie them together, store them in the shed and viola, come fall I have unique decorations for the front of my house.

As pictured here, they are a economical/ecological way to decorate, instead of buying corn husks.

Over this past weekend, I managed to get a few things on my To Do list done. Like cleaning up the leaves on the patio - this has become a regular chore over the last month. It seems like the dynamics of my patio make for a perfect gathering place for leaves ... so every weekend I go out with my handy-dandy Black & Decker leaf machine and suck them up. With three dogs, I get plenty of leaves inside the house as well, and it all goes into the compost pile with grass clippings from the lawn. The combination of green matter and brown matter makes for a good base for next year's compost. (Of course, I'm still hoping for a good yield of compost, after failing miserably the last two seasons.)
And the leaves don't just end up on the patio ... the pond is full of them too. So Saturday it was time to get the net out! I hate getting the net out, it's my last admission of defeat (that the summer's really over), but it had to be done or the fish wouldn't have any room to swim! Anyway, in preparation for covering the pond, the summer pond plants had to be removed as well. So that means the canna and black taro got taken out to die back from the cold nights, and then placed in the basement to hibernate till next year. The net tends to confuse the frogs too.

Black Taro
And since my neighbors have left for their winter home in Florida and covered their pond already, I have more frogs to tend to. So I can't completely cover my pond, or the frogs wouldn't be able to get in or out. It usually takes a couple of days to figure out exactly where they are comfortable jumping in/out, so I can leave that end a little open. Every now and then over the years, I find a frog early in the morning sitting in the middle of the net, confused, cold and in need of rescue!
Still have to plant the dward rhododendrons my previous neighbors left me when they moved a couple months ago ... time's running out. And I still haven't planted my precious Allium bulbs yet. If you still have any perennials, bulbs or shrubs left to plant, get them in the ground ASAP. Especially since last night we actually had frost.
And most important (because I've been forgetting this one too) WATER! This month's lack of rain has not been kind to our plant life. Especially for any new plantings, get out and water! Just because summer flowering season is over, don't forget your plants still need water ... I can't stress this enough. Water early in the day, if possible, since the temperature has been dipping at night, it's not a good idea to wait until near dusk to water. You wouldn't want to be out there at night all wet ...

In the Spring of 2004, after spending the winter watching HGTV and saying, "we could do that," I got the bright idea of eliminating our mowing time, by creating a garden path on the inside of the fence of around a quarter of our yard. Every year we've added a new garden area and/or feature.

My water gardening experience started that same year with a 20-gallon insert I bought as a fountain kit at Kmart. I knew nothing, except the sound of running water would create a more peaceful atmosphere in my "outdoor room."

We submerged the tub into a small triagular-shaped garden next to our patio and relaxed to the soothing sounds. I even placed floating plastic, can you believe it, plants in the water! Secretly knowing all along that this was my way of easing my family into what I really wanted -- a pond with real plants and fish.

Since everyone enjoyed the fountain -- especially the dogs, they thought this was their own private drinking fountain -- it wasn't hard to convince them that a small pond wouldn't be much trouble. Aside from digging the whole, it would practically take care of itself.

We got the smallest pond kit available (60 gallons) -- for those of you who "pond", it's the Tobago model -- and settled into pond life. We got four fancy goldfish fish and two plants with the kit. We expanded to eight fish and I bought a few more plants. Soon the pond looked like the photo above.

Everyone was really happy with the new feature. I took care of if, cleaning the filter once a week in the summer, and we even bought a floating heater for the winter to take care of our newest family members.

The following summer I discovered a small fish swimming in the previously mentioned 20-gallon fountain. We figured it got there off one of the floating plants that I routinely took out of the pond and put in the fountain to help keep it clear. We were so excited, figuring we must be doing something right, if the fish were happy enough to breed. Three more babies survived that summer (the other fish tend the eat the babies when they're very small, and since they have them by the hundreds, that's really not a bad thing).

The original fish were growing bigger and bigger (our biggest from nose-to-tail tip is almost a foot long), so we decided in Spring 2006, that we needed a bigger pond. We upgraded to the Trinidad, a 240-gallon preformed pond. And the fish couldn't be happier, and I do mean HAPPIER! Last summer they increased their "school" to over 30 fish!!

We also added a waterfall, more water plants and a whole lot more landscaping around it. Ponding is very addicting, but I couldn't recommend it more. It's great for kids too. They can learn a whole lot about the environment from a backyard pond. Like watching the frogs that show up every year. Where they come from, I don't know, but they always show up. Last year we had tons of tadpoles, but the fish ate most of them. (Thanks fish!) If you do it right, and take proper care, you'll have your own little ecosystem with prime seats right off your patio like we do.

Yes, it takes work, about an hour or so per week, maybe 1 1/2 during August, but it's very rewarding. As the season progresses, I'll get more into caring for the pond and pond life, specific plants, etc. But for now, here's some photos to enjoy, including how it looks right now.