Thank you all for your sweet comments. Today I was feeling all that work. I'm also starting my kitchen reno - I'm a glutton for punishment. HA! garden2garden - the tall spikey plants are . It sends out these spectacularly huge flower spikes with red flowers that the native wattle bird loves to feed on. They must be at least 12 feet tall. I have seeds from them flying all over my garden. They are exteremely hardy and will grow in Canada. They seem to be popular in the UK. I haven't decided what plants I'll put in the pond. I'm having trouble figuring what plants to put around the ponds! HA! catalinagrey - I didn't really find the bridge - it was here when I bought the house but stuck under some bushes at the side of the house. Weird when ya figure they had a pond. janey - that aint no pond. Like luna said, it's an OLYMPIC SIZED SWIMMING POOL!!!! HAHAHA You crack me up. Always doing it bigger n' better than anyone else. YOU GO GIRLFRIEND!! My DH doesn't help me one bit, either. But that's cuz I tell him he just gets in my way! HA! I don't play well with others. Too picky. These ponds are very small. Nothing huge like what you have so not all that difficult to make. I dug the holes in one day. Instead of building up the sides why don't you just get a piece of rebar mesh - like the kind I used in my trellis for the entrance of Our Lady Garden - only lay it across the top the keep it down with stones or something. I think that might be easier. Jeanne - all those ponds are BEAUTIFUL!! I won't be messing with either pumps or filters. Not necessary here. I was talking to my neighbor about that today and asked her what she thought and she never heard of such a thing HAHAHA It was funny. Said she was thinking of putting in a pond, too, and I said she just wanted to steal my frogs! We had a good laugh at that. I would love it if she put in a pond, too. The more frogs the merrier. I don't think we have toads around here. I'll try to find one to take a pic. They are really tiny things. HAHAHAHA Yes, luna... soon the leaves will be changing up by you and I'll have all the fun in the sun! Hopefully we won't have nother summer like last time. And I'm praying no fires, either. I've had my fill of those. Jan - I've yet to see the clematis self-sow anywhere in my garden. I wouldn't mind, though. I'd just pluck it up and give it to a friends or sell it. Clematis is very expensive here and I'm sure the nurseries wouldn't mind me giving them a stockpile. To those who asked for seed... they were mailed out today.

Do you have fish in your pond? I have lots of tadpoles and they grow up and leave in one season unless they are bull frog tadpoles and they take 2 seasons to mature. You can look for them with a flashlight at night to see what kind of frog or toad poles you have or go to a website that has frog and toad mating calls for identification. Be sure to leave them a way to get out of the pond when they are mature-thru climbing out on plants or stacked rocks to climb out on. Most of my tadpoles are toads and are very tiny when they mature. About dime size. You have to watch where you step around the pond when they leave since they all seem to leave at the same time. I enjoy the tadpoles and watching them mature. I do try to catch and relocate the bull frogs that find their way into my pond because they eat my fish babies and the smaller fish.

i have 2 ponds in my yard with plants and fish. i drained the kids pool for the winter and was going to fill it up again for the kids as it was going to be 90 this week. the pool has about 3 inches of water in it from the rain. it is full of tadpoles. some are large and have their back legs already, but some are still babies. can i move them to one of my ponds without hurting them? so i can ready the pool for the kids. problem 2: i was hanging clothes out on the clothes line yesterday and a million termite "flies" came buzzing by me. they were coming from a stump in the empty lot next to me. i was going to put bleach on it (i heard that will clear them up) but there were a lot of lizards on it eating the "flies" so i did nothing. i do not want any termites in my yard...what do i do? thanks cindy

Well it's been a week and the tadpoles seem to be very fat and happy. They love the nasty boiled lettuce and I stuck a bunch of my floating plants in the tank and a small rock with algea on it. I also have a strange looking water bug and a couple of baby salamanderes which look a lot like the tadpoles just skinnier and they have a little fan around their gills. also now have several baby fish... My fish spawned and I didn't realize it and stuck the pond plants in there.. I was down looking in the side of the pond and saw all the babies in it so I know they weren't some out of the same pond as the tadpoles. My hubby thinks I'm nuts with my obsession with the fish/frogs/etc. Just can't help myself.