June sign in!

News and Announcements

Moderators: alison, sonny

June sign in!

Postby dampflippers on Wed Jun 04, 2008 12:26 pm

Hi Alison,
Why don't you send an email round to all members to ask them to sign in to this thread, and tell us how their pond is doing?
I belong to other message boards, and this is done routinely to remind people they are members.

Here's my bit:
My ponds are doing fine, though one is a bit green. I'm just wishing I hadn't topped them up the day before all this rain started!
I have baby sticklebacks, new newt efts, and my tadpoles haven't developed yet.
I'm spending alot of time watching my bluetit cam.
dampflippers
 
Posts: 232
Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2006 10:24 am
Location: South Tyneside

Re: June sign in!

Postby alison on Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:49 am

Great Idea damp. :smt115
My pond had finally cleared up away from the murky water and was looking pretty good but after all the rain it looks a bit brown today. I am sure it will clear again though. We have the yellow flag Iris flowering at the moment and something I learnt from Simon King when he was on gardeners world last week was that when the tip of the Iris leaf is curled across, a spider has made a nest in it. I am going to look out for that this month. I also have my purple ones just opening as well whereas on other years they have opened and finished before the yellow flag. In fact the pond plants seem a little later than usual this year. Other plants coming up are the lilies and a rush of some sort. The marsh marigolds have just about finished and the water hawthorn has been flowering for ages. Did you know that you can eat the flower and it tastes like almonds. The bog bean is looking really lush at the moment and is the best it has been so far. I have pickeral weed as well just starting and the primrose willow is trying to get going. The lovely stripey grass had disappeared so my neighbour gave me one of his and I planted some into the pond and some of it into my borders. I guess I gave too much of it away last year.
The creatures in the pond are obviously a few different fish like the shubunkins, goldfish, comets, golden orfe, tench and ghost koi. Then the hardy sticklebacks and today finally we found a lonely tadpole so maybe they didn't all perish after all. :smt041
I have lost 3 of my larger older fish this spring which was quite sad as it is a few years now since any died after winter. Lots of frogs and a couple of toads are still frequenting the pond with quite a few youngsters from last year making an appearance. I found 2 when I moved my recycling wheelie bin which seemed to be a nice damp dark place for them only being moved once a month. I guess they thought it was a nice large rock. :D
User avatar
alison
 
Posts: 1828
Joined: Wed May 11, 2005 7:23 pm
Location: Leeds West Yorkshire

Re: June sign in!

Postby kaz on Thu Jun 05, 2008 6:55 pm

The ponds could be better at the moment and really I should dedicate a weekend to sorting them out. The yellow flags, white and pink waterlilies are flowering in the big pond, but the lilies have lost their anchor so that looks a right mess! Also, after having the over zealous growth of oxygenators last year, I feel I could be heading for the same crisis again unless I get rid of a load. Fish seem ok.

As for the patio pond... the fish have been mating and the plants thriving. However, the waterfall needs some urgent attention.

The 2 ducks are back and the female wandered into my kitchen a couple of days ago :shock: (no eggs this year).
kaz
 
Posts: 1031
Joined: Sun May 15, 2005 3:35 pm
Location: Essex

Re: June sign in!

Postby Ponddipperdave on Thu Jun 05, 2008 9:11 pm

Hi All,
My pond is looking beautiful. Still lots of Duckweed but I watersweep that into the far corner every week. I took a bunch of Starwort out and put it in my Newt nursery, Hundreds of them. All the clumps of spawn in the buckets hatched out but here's a strange thing, one bucket in particular produced froglets all at the same time. I could see that some of them were distressed so I put them back into the pond. must have been about 50 of them! I still have a slow leak that I have been unable to find so I have to top up each week. That pesky Heron caused it. I managed to get a couple of photos, and a video of it this time. The edges of my pond liner are still being chewed by a fox. I continued feeding the birds up to last week. A cat killed a wood pigeon in the garden, The Magpies were scavaging at it but it was in a rather awkward place in the bushes. The next morning it had gone. The fox had taken it I assume.
A couple of days ago, I saw an adult female newt on a waterlily with something sticking in her mouth. I thought it had choked on a tadpole. When I picked it up, it wriggled out of my fingers and fell back into the pond. This evening, it could have been the same Newt with a big black thing on its nose. This time, I took a closer look. It had taken a small ramshorne snail out of the water and was eating it. It looked like it had its head trapped in the shell. I came inside to get my camera and when I went back outside, it was gone!
More tales from the Ponddipper Diaries soon.
Dave
Hi All,
Dave here
What's an ICQ Number ?
Ponddipperdave
 
Posts: 118
Joined: Tue May 17, 2005 11:05 pm
Location: Manchester

Re: June sign in!

Postby Ponddipperdave on Thu Jun 05, 2008 9:14 pm

Hello Administrator Alison,
Internal server error at 21:13
just as I tried to do my june sign in.
This is the second time I have written a short Novella only to lose it when submitting.
Dave
Hi All,
Dave here
What's an ICQ Number ?
Ponddipperdave
 
Posts: 118
Joined: Tue May 17, 2005 11:05 pm
Location: Manchester

Re: June sign in!

Postby alison on Fri Jun 06, 2008 12:01 am

Hi Dave. Did it go altogether? because I have found it saying this :smt017 and I was thinking that I had lost everything, and then I went back to the board index to look, it had actually submitted it even though it said there was the fault and hadn't submited. I don't know what the fault is. I will ask Sonny. But don't worry It does seem to submit. :?
User avatar
alison
 
Posts: 1828
Joined: Wed May 11, 2005 7:23 pm
Location: Leeds West Yorkshire

Re: June sign in!

Postby retropwr on Sat Jun 07, 2008 10:58 pm

Something is definantly different in the pond this year. :?
The Pickerel is definantly behind compared to the last couple of years, yet the Marsh Marigold is a monster this year.
All the Elodea had gone, I think the fish had eaten that as when I took the pot out there was plenty of root but no top. Added some fresh today so lets see what happens to that - probably fresh salad for the fish.
The Water Soldiers have all but gone, it looks like they've all been eaten as well.
Good things are that the Duck Weed that was a real problem has all disapeared as has the blanket weed. This is the first year ever that I haven't had to spend the weekends pulling out armfulls of the stuff.
There's been no hanky panky in the pond this year, possibly because the lack of blanket weed and elodea means they have nothing to spawn in :(
I wonder if the new small pond with all the Bullrushes and the monster Marsh Marigold is 'cleaning' a lot of the nutrients out.
I put some fertiliser sticks in some of the pots today to see if it will give the plants that are lagging behind a boost and was pleased to see that what I thought was a single lonely frog has a friend and they were both sitting happily on the Pickerel pot. :D
Richard
User avatar
retropwr
 
Posts: 240
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2005 8:51 pm
Location: Reading, Berkshire

Re: June sign in!

Postby Tricia on Sun Jun 08, 2008 11:43 pm

The water in my patio pond is not very clear at the moment, a brown sediment coating everything that floats makes it difficult to see the fish except when they come up to feed. Plantwise there are three white waterlilies, water forget-me-nots, a pretty yellow flower(no idea of the name), Kermesina blue irises and yellow creeping jenny which make the area quite colourful.

I only lost one of my original shubunkins this past winter and am hoping that the goldfish won't be too prolific this year. I am forever having to give fish away to keep the stock at a manageable level.

I've just come back from a short holiday and the next big job is to clean both pump and filter and to replace the UV filter. I'll also have to reduce the spread of the primrose willow, lilypads and the elodea crispa before long too.
Tricia

Image
Image
Tricia
 
Posts: 334
Joined: Tue May 17, 2005 11:10 pm
Location: Torbay, Devon

Re: June sign in!

Postby dampflippers on Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:43 pm

Did you send an email out to the membership Alison? ....I'm waiting for replies from N. Ireland!
dampflippers
 
Posts: 232
Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2006 10:24 am
Location: South Tyneside

Re: June sign in!

Postby alison on Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:54 pm

I started to do them all singly and then Sonny said I could do a mass email which I did attempt, but I wasn't sure if it sent or not as it came up with 'email not being the correct address'. Linda was one of the one's I tried singly and it wouldn't go. I sent the mass one including Sonny and it didn't end up there so I guess that none of them went out. I had waited because a few did respond but then I realised that I had done theirs singly and also they were our regular ones so even if they didn't get the email they would have seen the post. I will get onto it. I thought I had sent Seans on it's own but I can't remember. I will try again. :?
If anyone gets one and they have already had one just ignore it. I'm not good on the computer, I think I will have to go on a course for dummies. Sonny does everything technical. :D
User avatar
alison
 
Posts: 1828
Joined: Wed May 11, 2005 7:23 pm
Location: Leeds West Yorkshire

Re: June sign in!

Postby dampflippers on Tue Jun 17, 2008 9:26 am

If you copy and paste the same message, then sending them out singly wouldn't take too long. Just add a sentence saying that you are sending this message to all members so that people don't get miffed that it isn't personal.

Looking forward to hearing from all the old members again.

Just to say I dug the turf off the site of my third pond yesterday. It's a second hand preform- I haven't done one of those before. Any advice welcome. :D
dampflippers
 
Posts: 232
Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2006 10:24 am
Location: South Tyneside

Re: June sign in!

Postby whis4ey on Tue Jun 17, 2008 5:24 pm

I spent a lot of time this year clearing out a lot (and I mean a lot) of pondweed
We can now see the bottom of the pond and have been rewarded with views of tadpoles, newts, beetles etc etc
Mind you ... I could remove the same again and still not be finished completely
It is a great pity that we have no fish any more, as they were fun to watch. however this year we had a duck and 3 ducklings (you can now view the video on my website) and with all the other pondlife things are not too bad
I allowed a visit by some 40 members of the local probus club and that meant we really did spend about 6 weeks working just that little bit harder to clean things up, so it was all worth while
So instead of a fish pond I now have a lilypond, wildlife pond or duck pond :)
whis4ey
 
Posts: 277
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2005 9:55 am
Location: N Ireland

Re: June sign in!

Postby alison on Wed Jun 18, 2008 9:01 pm

Well another attempt at a mass email. Will see how it goes before doing anything else. Another pond Damp, well well, you will be catching up to Sean with his 4 ponds pretty soon. The only advice I would give is to get the levels right and perfectly packed around the preform. The best person to give advice is Richard as he had one given and has made it look lovely.
Sam I am off to view your ducklings. :D Sonny has taken some really georgous photo's of some goslings at Fairburn Ings. It is always lovely to see little babies. At Temple Newsam there are ducklings and little coots. Their babies look more like Moorhens as they have bits of red on their faces. The Coot parents are very protective of them and really fight anything that gets close.
In my pond we have had a shoal of baby sticklebacks. They are so tiny. No other forms of babes from the other fish though.
The plant life is really taking over now and the Iris keep falling over with the weight of them and the roots are coming out of the bottom so they don't lie flat. I will have to repot. The frogs love to sit on the Iris ryzomes. The japanese monster marsh marigold is just about finished but the leaves are huge.(thanks again Steve for this plant)
User avatar
alison
 
Posts: 1828
Joined: Wed May 11, 2005 7:23 pm
Location: Leeds West Yorkshire


Return to News

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest

cron