I'm not a turtle expert, I'll leave that to someone else. I had never seen a tree frog in my area until I put in my pond and last summer I had 12 at a time walking on the siding of the house near it. You may want to try dwarf varieties of water lilies. Dwarf "Sioux" is one of my favorites, its 6" pads nearly cover my 5'x5' pond if I don't trim it back once or twice, and its a prolific bloomer (even when I forget to fertilize it). Water canna lilies are vigorous growers and good for your back wall. My dwarf gets 3-4' high, and one with nice varigated leaves would be 6-8' if it wasn't root-bound :) Pickeral rush comes in purple and white, dwarf and regular. My dwarfs get to be 1 1/2 - 2' high and bloom all summer. And you can't beat water iris for nice foliage to cover the wall too. I got a nice big handful of plants here on the exchange last spring and they were bursting from the 5 pots I planted by fall (about 3' tall). My dwarf papyrus tends to be slow starting, but maybe I'm not treating it right. Don't forget oxygenators for the fish, and I think Parrot Feather would be great in the top. Floaters like WH, water cress and water lettuce are wonderful filters. Bigger plants won't go over the falls, but azolla probably would. You might try a water forget-me-not tucked in the rocks, they love flowing water. If they spread too much you just rip out a bunch and compost it. Good to keep the fish load down - my 6 feeder goldfish equalled 28 in one short summer, so plan on sharing. Your pond is lovely, I can see why you stuck to your guns to have your vision come out just right! Good luck and happy spring!

My kitchen is BM Baby Turtle and my trim is BM Vanilla Ice Cream. I find the Vanilla Ice Cream is the perfect creamy white. I have it on all trim on the main level (haven't gotten to painting ugly wood trim upstairs, but I will) and think it goes well with all colors in my house (red, gold, tan, green).

Hi, thanks for all the advice. I've decided that I want a gold but now I'm trying to decide if I want Restrained Gold or Blonde. I have Blonde in my Kitchen and I love it but I thought that maybe a warmer color would look better in the living room. Any opinions on that? What does it have to be so hard to pick a paint color?! Can someone please tell me how to find a older post of mine. Someone did mockups for me and I cant find my post. Thanks, kim

I wonder if those of you that have made these traps could post a photo of them? I am looking at making a bucket type one outside the pond. You dig a hole, put the bucket in, cover the bucket with a material and put bait on it. When the turtle tries to get to the bait it falls in the bucket. Kind of makes sense to me but he is in the pond 98% of the time! I am going to use meat and berries as the bait. I'd like to see what kind of traps etc. you guys are thinking about. Thanks. Bulldinkie...how lucky you are to have swans! They are so beautiful.