So peaceful and so serene. Is this what heaven looks like?
Your pond and yard are sooo beautiful. I'm envious.

That's the word I've been looking for! Heaven! It's truly an Eden you've created, Joann, and your plants...oh, the envy! LOL

Your koi are the most precious pets. I really think of them as pups now. :D

The plantaholic,
Brenda

Looks good.Looks like a nice place to relax in the evening.
Or any other time of of day.

WOW! what perfection.

Gorgeous, thank you! (ahhh, another fix :)

The head grounds keeper must be doing some plumbing, lots of odds and ends on that chair!

What's the lighter green plant growing in the planter with the petal edges in photo #2? And what's your favorite shade land plant for medium to big bushy coverage? (To hide an above ground 60ga tank for instance)?

Thanks, Sarah

It just leaves me speechless every time! Wait till my NEXT pond! I'm studying everything you have ever posted, Joann!
Debbie

Thank you everyone for the kind comments.
Sarah, the planter is actually a cement bird bath, we drilled holes in the bottom and planted it. Usually we plant it with flowers, but a couple of years ago another ponder sent me some ground cover and we planted the ground cover in the planter.
It dies off in the winter and comes back in March.

Here is is from June 7th,

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On June 27th, it starting to cascade down the sides.
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Sarah, I have many favorites, one of them being purple palace. First tell me about how high you want the plant to be and if you post a couple of pictures of the area I can give you some ideas on how to hide the filter.

Yourit, here's more precious pups.

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Sarah, in the second photo you can see the purple palace, here is a better shot of it from May 05

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Those children are adorable! What a paradise for them!

Sarah, How could I forget acuba. It's an evergreen shrub
and looks wonderful in winter. You can let it get as big as you want. We have it in the front beds and along the peremiter of our property and at the end of our deck. It roots easily, that why we have it all over. It's colorful and dense.
We just transplanted a piece about 2 weeks ago. Here it is by the pond in back of the cattails. It's light green and white.

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Here it is in the arbor, you can let it get as big as you like, in our front beds we keep it 4' high. It is very dense and the birds sleep in it at night in the winter. On the other end of our deck we let it get 8' tall.

thank you catherine

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I agree about Aucuba! It's so easy to grow, and it really lightens up a dark, shady area. Not sure how it would fair through a Minnesota winter, but it's worth a shot!

Brenda

Brenda, You're right. I looked it up it says zone 6-10 :(
How about eunonomus (sp?) that is what we have all over. It's an evergreen shrub, again it can get enormous or clipped to a small shrub. It is pictured next to the arbor. It blocks out neighbors and noise. :)

I'll try to post some pix tomorrow. The stock tank filter is 60ga, oval, above ground. There are a few hostas around it, but the varieties I have so far aren't tall enough to hide it well. Two sides have tansy around, can't kill that stuff and it hides it well. I have several plants in it that will eventually drape over the sides, but with my short growing season I have to wait 'til mid July to get good coverage (of everything!). I'm sooo impatient.

So I guess I'm sort of looking for a shrub (evergreen would be great), bush, or fast growing plant, that I can keep trimmed back if I want to. The area next to the tank is about 4' x 3' so I have some room.

Thanks for your suggestions so far! I'll check them out!

Sarah

PS: The spot is at the NW corner of the house, gets about 4 hours of hot afternoon sun, the rest of the time shade. (it's pretty protected in the winter).