Thanks everybody :-) Yes Brenda your right that purple flower is Canterbury bells campanula medium i beleive. Sara im so glad you liked it. I have wanted some for years and every time i buy them they die! Sooo i decided i would try to grow them from seed and it took a couple of years but i was so proud when they bloomed this year :-) They will probably die now! Hope not but i expect it. They seem really fragile. Thank you Jean! I just loved watching it zoom around and don't have a clue what it was eating but i hope it was mosquitoes :-) Do they eat mosquitoes? I was so worried for her because she was hanging out on the deck under the gutters that the blue jays love to dig around in and i was worried they would spot her and have a nice juicy bug dinner. She sure looked fat to me. Maybe full of eggs? She seemed to be guarding the birdbath fountain. I just havent ever seen one that big before. Usually they are skinny with lots of wings zooming by but she kept hanging around and i was so excited to see her little plump self. I beleive dragonflies are carnivorous aren't they? My son was so excited too. I love nature. I will definitely keep my eyes out for the lovely jewelwings Jean. Thank you :-) Brenda so glad you liked Herman! He/she has me trained. After breakfast or dinner i always carry the scrapes out with some bread and dog food to feed what ever comes by for a visit. Hermon is always sitting in the tree waiting and will "CAW" for me to hurry up. LOL...I hurry up too :-) The Bluejays have fits when Hermon is around but i love him/her anyway even if she eats the other birds babies its only to feed his own. Herman keeps ALL hawks and owls in their place too. I have seen him chase and attack a redtail hawk before. DO NOT mess with Herman! LOL...I feel really touched that he has made a connection with me and the food too. Hermon just had some babies come by for a visit but they wouldn't come down to eat. They just tried to hang on to the branches they were on and flopped and squawked a lot :-) Some didnt hang on to good and fell off so it was kinda funny to watch. Hope they come back for some more nibbles soon. They are always welcome. I will know they are here when the little Bluejay alarms go off. Life is good :-) Bonnie

I designed, planned & planted my shade bed knowing Dicentra s. 'Alba' wouldn't put on a season-long show. By the time it finishes blooming and the foliage begins to deteriorate, other shade lovers planted nearby block the dying foliage from my view. While it's blooming, however, IMO it holds its own in the perennial shade garden long enough to justify its presence. To each his/her own preference of course. It will have its place in my garden so long as it comes up every year, which (in my experience thus far) has been reliably, for more than a decade. What more can anyone ask?

To all posters: especially Jillmcm an vonyon, thank you so much for your input on this subject. I live in a wooded area. I love watching all the wildlife,- turkey, deer, and especially the birds, we have blue bird, martin and wren houses, and several bird baths. I have suet feeders, finch feeders, and a hopper feeders, along with several bird baths. I enjoy the birds so much, and spend many hours watching them. Then last summer a pair of phobees built a nest on a window sill on the second floor of our house. What a delight! They would swoop down and eat tons of insects. When I saw a hawk in a tree next to our house eyeing the baby phobees, it was too much, I went over the edge. I was obsessed with how to keep them out of our yard. All of the posts on this forum have been so helpful to putting things in balance. I am going to rethink my pattern of feeding the birds. Although the Phobees don't eat at bird feeders,they do use the bird baths, and the mere fact that there is a concentration of birds, attracted the hawks. By the way, the hawks nested in the woods next to us, and I heard the baby hawk calling after it's mother for food and say them hunting together, so I know they have to eat too. Thank you, again!

Hi Jane, the upper smaller pond is called a bog and it's purpose is to clean your water and offer a naturalized setting. This is a good thing that someone planned that feature. Your iris as with most of the water iris can be on the aggressive side. I divided mine with a saw a year ago. You wouldn't know that today though. I have Gamecock and Yellow flag. Yellow flag are super water cleaners. My gamecock has never bloomed but I do feed them with the approved pond tabs so as to not upset the overall environment. Personally, I would wait to divide as you could still get some cold snaps and they might be too stressed to handle the cold under those conditions. Placing them in a water garden plastic container/basket would make the job of dividing in the future much easier. There are many bog type plants to choose from. I love parrot feathers. They like to float on top and koi like to eat them so it is better the two don't meet. In regards to water: You might check to see if there is a koi club nearby or a garden center with knowledge about water gardens and koi. Of course the internet is full of information and it can be like the wild, wild west. You will run into many differences of opinions. I ran into that and it was very disheartening and totally confusing. In the end, it's up to you to do homework on water chemistry and how best to maintain your pond. I only say this because of experience and I hope you understand. I would gladly tell you what works for me but our ponds and environments are very different. Sad experience tells me that stuff happens on Saturday nights when there are no stores open to get emergency supplies so now I have those things, just in case. At minimum, you should know how to test your water. The good news is your pond is established meaning you have all those beneficial bacteria working for you. That can take months to get going. The first year of a pond can be an adventure :( Barring an ammonia spike, the bacteria should be able to handle the majority of work. Prior owners said to just add water occasionally. That probably would be okay because of your total volume. Doing the whole chlorine removal probably isn't necessary unless you are changing out thousands of gallons. A couple of hundred gallons added to what you already have will dilute it enough, I would think. Looking to the immediate future, spring is coming which will mean a food change. Water warms up, bacteria get more active. I would imagine the number one mistake people make is overfeeding. When the water temp. is low, you might not feed at all. The fish's metabolism slows down and food won't process. Koi can live in iced over conditions with a small vent hole for gasses to escape. They can do this for a long time so don't feel you are torturing them. But then spring comes and they are hungry and you need to be careful with the type and quantity of food because they will make a lot of waste and your bio filter needs to warm up in order to process waste. Are your Koi more cigar shaped (male) or rounder (female)? Spawning season is coming and that affects water quality too. Finally, think long and hard about adding more fish until you feel really confident in your maintenance routine. You probably will have to muck out the debris on the bottom, old leaves and such. Does this pond have a liner? Cleaning it out is messy and exhausting. Your filter will need to be cleaned or backwashed and you should check all your equipment for wear and tear. Pumps do wear out mostly when you least expect it. Hopefully they left you some notes on the how, what, where for reference. Did the prior owners take care of this themselves or hire a service? I hope this helps a little. Have a great day!