Want to know the funny part? there's only two plants in that picture that I take inside, the red leaved banana, and the little green leaved one to the left. The rest are either hardy hibiscus, reseeding annuals, or perennials. The large green bananas are musa basjoo, and I don't dig them, I chop and cover them with bags of leaves. I do get a new start of the chartreuse green sweet potato vine each year though. I'm a LAZY tropical gardener...

Thanks Mamabirrd. My grandson is VERY special. My son lives right next door so he brings the little guy nearly every day. He loves the ponds and loves feeding fish and he always wants to take home a flower from my garden for his mommy. It's been so long ago since I built that big pond that I am not 100% of the dimensions. I am pretty sure it is 13' wide and 25' or 27' long. And it's 4' deep. The waterfall pool at the top where my largest male koi live is about 800 gallons, the filters hold around another 200 gallons, so the main pond alone holds around 8000 gallons.

I love the way you seem to have attached the rocks to the side of your skippy filter. I have just installed a skippy this summer beside my pre-fab pond. The pond has tumbeled stones stacked around the sides of it, but now I have this black thing towering over the side. And while I love what the skippy is doing for my water clarity, the bucket it's in does terrible things for the look of the pond. Incorporating your idea into mine would help tremendously, but don't have a clue as to how to begin attaching anything to the black round tub. Thanks for your photo inspiration! Karen

yeah, my jack russell has to be closely supervised as she thinks the fish moving around make a fun game,,she has already chased down one and ate one of my favorites, so she cant be left around the pond alone,,