grooming the garden pond plants..........burr water is cold

[addy1]

Managed to groom 4 of my lilies, boy have they grown! Tons of tubers, growing out of their containers. One tuber that was a start in may (around 2 inches long) is now around 16 inches long and 4 inches thick. Covered with eyes.

Meganne that pink one that gets the clusters of pink blooms is one huge tuber. It is one you sent to me last fall.

It was hard to cut the little buds off the lilies, almost quit so they would grow and bloom, they still have been blooming just slower. Our temperature is just going down down down lol. The kitty litter has been replaced by roots.

Hopefully the leaves won't keep growing but if they do back to cutting them off.

Pulled out the taros, "elephant ears" they too are huge. What a root mass, some had grown through the holes in the bottom of the pots. One pot was so heavy never thought I would get it out of the water. Next year smaller pots lol, or bare rooted. I clipped off the roots, clipped the plant, now they are sitting outside drying a little. Then I will bring them in to dry some more before storing for the winter.

Still have a bunch of grooming ran out of energy and that water is cold on the hands. Going to pick up some waders, I have a pole that grabs and pulls them out, but will be easier with waders.

The fish could not figure out what was going on, water became one muck cloud, could not even see the fish, but it cleared up quickly, within about 2 hours back to almost crystal clear.

Pond surface is starting to look naked and the fish are probably wondering what happened to their hiding spots.

I did bring in a few plants to see if they make it over winter, the star grass and two baby taros. One tropical lily that is heading for the basement.

[addy1]

We had our first frost last night, got to 32 degrees a warm 34 right now....... glad I got the grooming started. The hyacinths are still blooming, green and growing, crazy plants.

[stroppy]

sadly summer has almost gone here too Chris, i am going to leave my watercress as its growing so well, and see what happens, have already started covering the pond at night as we have had hard frosts for a week or more, pond is hovering at 56 but the air is much colder :(

[Meganne]

och that makes my hand hurt Chris! early spring and fall work in cold wet ...ugh! I am always glad when it is done and aways thinking 'man didnt I just repot this dern thing?!' lol!

[addy1]

Well got the lilies done, doing just a little leaf scooping and managed to scoop up five frogs, not sure of what kind, but they are in their bottom of the pond winter mode. Every time I pulled up the net had to check for tadpoles, frogs, snails lol





My neighbor gave me some waders, that made it easier to get into that cold water to grab the lilies.
We are dropping to 50 this weekend, but it will be sunny and 70 today, just beautiful.

[Meganne]

Chris here is a sleepy cold fellow we found on year

[addy1]

That looks like the ones I have found, do you know what kind it is?
I was cleaning out the skimmer basket, saw a glob of junk dumped it out, in the glob was a frog. The little sucker jumped back in the skimmer (no basket) went for a wild ride down the piping around 4 turns, through a ball valve, ended up in the pump leaf basket. I ran flipped off the pump pulled it out, it was fine, tossed back into the pond.

I left some areas uncleaned ie some string algae on the bottom of the pond, for all the snails, tads, and frogs to eat and live in. Tossed a ton back in as I cleaned.

[Meganne]

when I haa my first tiny lily garden I bought some bull tads si I think is is just your ol run of the mill bull frog. it is bigger than the one you posted but the black and white pattern of the underside of it's belly and legs match your's dont they. bet they are at least cousins! lol.

[addy1]

These guys do just a little peep when I walk up to the pond as they dive in. Very nervous. Have not heard that bullfrog noise at all ....yet.

I check the skimmer basket constantly, found two little frogs in it yesterday. They can come up for air, but not sure they could get out past the floating door.

None of them are real big, maybe 3 inches body size.