Happy Thanksgiving

The snow we had last Sunday did not kill the plants that are flowering. Since I have the wildlife habitat and I am trying to plant more native plants I did not plant any mums this year. My recirculating pond pump is still turned on. I will be shutting it down soon and will fill both levels of the pond as full as I can. I will wrap up my hose and bring it inside to store for the winter. I am really enjoying the new windows because I can look out on the wildlife habitat area without going outside in the cold.

First Snow

We started our first snow fall yesterday around 7:30. I still have roses, cone flowers, moon flowers, peacock orchids, zinnias. and a lot of other plants still blooming. The house is going through a major transformation with new windows being installed. This is making the house look better and in turn the yard looks better. It is nice to be able to see out the windows to see the pond and my wildlife habitat. The front bay window area above my porch is also getting re framed and new siding put up. This was supposed to be done by Home Depot but they did not do it. The contract they wrote up even said they would re frame and wrap the bay area and the dormers with siding. They broke the contract then claimed that it should not have been promised in the contract because they do not do any re framing. I fought with them for almost 6 months and finally gave up, Never trust Home Depot to do any kind of install. Just look up all the complaints on line and you will see they do not do the work right and because they are not certified by the manufacturer of the products they use any warranty on materials or craftsmanship  is no good. If you confront them about all the complaints on line they will try to tell you that they are false complaints from their competition. I will not go on about Home Depots incompetence. But I did want to share how nice it is having new windows installed professionally by Apollo Windows. Here are some photos of the work being done. I also have a photo of the new kitchen floor that was put down by friends Fran and John.

 The inside of the new dinning room windows. Once they are finished off  with new framing and paint they will look great. These are top of the line windows so they better keep the house warmer,

 The new landing window is an awning window with tempered glass. It makes the stairway and front entry so much brighter during the day.

 The bay window area above my front porch is almost done. It is finished off with the siding Home Depot left behind. the windows are white and they are capped off with aluminum coil in clay. The siding is called desert sand.

 The house is looking a lot nicer with all the colors matching. it sed to have so many colors on it it looked like crap.

 My dinning room bay area from the outside.

 Dinning room

 Dinning room

 Landing

 Living room

New kitchen floor. Now I just need to put up all the trim and base boards and the kitchen will be finished.

The changing of the season.

Now that the season is changing and the leaves are turning colors I am putting my efforts into fixing up the house. Soon I will be replacing my windows.

Almost November and still gardening

 I can not believe it is almost November and I am still working on my pond and gardening. I still have quite a bit of blooms throughout the yard.

My pond is looking good still considering it is almost November.

 I do not know if I kneed to drop my pots of Iris' to the deepest part of the pond. In nature no one drops them to deeper water.

 I am hoping everything will winter over alright.

Enjoying the last of my roses and sedum.

 Meadow Rue is still in bloom and cotoneaster has berries on it.

 Balloon flowers had a long season this year.

 

 The pond plants really filled in this year. Next year I will thin some out.

 Added ten bluegills to the upper pond. So far I have only lost two.

 Its getting colder and windy so even my little pond gets choppy.

 Sometimes I just sit and watch the light reflect off the surface of the water.

Afew of the bluegills around the new lotus.

 Bluegills and lotus

 Bluegills and lotus

 Bluegills

 Bluegill and goldfish

 Rose

 Rose

 Gentian

 Black eyed Susan

 Next years dogwood flower buds.

 Roses

  Bluegill

 Bluegill

Bluegill

Bluegill

I know it is the end of the season, but today I stocked my pond with Bluegill, They are my favorite fish and a must have for my certified wildlife habitat. Next spring I hope to add a few darters. I got the fish from http://www.midatlanticstocking.com/ I hope that they will be well adjusted to my pond by next March or April so they will be ready for spawning.

Just Catching Up

It has been a while since I have posted. I just got so involved with my new pond and projects around the house. I will try to show the last 2 months of changes that have taken place. 

September 2016

 I am amazed with how fast everything grew in around the pond. I am anxious to see how the pond area will look over the winter. I am also anxious to see what it will look like when the sweet bay magnolia grows bigger and the trumpet vine covers the fence. I am trying to go with a natural wooded look for this area of wildlife habitat.

 I had several water lilies this year. I had several of the pink and a few of the Texas Dawn. I also planted some (Nelumbo Lutea) American Lotus from seed. I hope It had enough time to set in before it gets cold.

 You can see I have a nice selection of pond plants and they really did a good job of filling in. I even had to wade into the pond to weed because some were growing to well.

 I really have learned and enjoyed my pond this year. I am looking forward to seeing it winter over and see it come back again next year.

 One of my lily turfs growing around the pond. I have variegated and plain lily turfs. Variegated has green and white leaves with purple flowers and the plain have green leaves with a soft pinkish rose color flower.

 I had cut this plant back and it is flowering again. I did not know if this would happen but happy it did.

Cyclamen. I think this actually a florist type and will need to come inside for the winter. I am hoping to order some hardy cyclamen for next year.  

 Purple Aster

 Purple Aster

 Type of sedum ground cover.

A branch of holly I started from a cutting. It is about 3 years old. 

Chameleon plant. It has a lot of color so it must be happy here.  

Back yard area. 

Autumn Joy Sedum is starting to change color.