I linked the photos to show the OP the three outer ponds surrounding the column pond, they are all pretty much no maintenance wildlife ponds. The columns are basalt, they are quarried near here in the Columbia River Gorge. They split off the mountain in columns naturally. I work from home selling gifts and home decor wholesale to stores not at a quarry. ;) It took my husband several hours (each) to drill them using a rotohammer he brought home from work and this saved us hundreds of dollars. Pre-drilled columns are available all over the place here but very expensive. He built the bases using standard 12" cinder blocks and 12" slate floor tiles mortared on to cover them. They sit on extra pieces of liner. There are PVC pipes going up through each base into each column there is a trident shaped piece made of PVC that the hoses connect to so all three columns are run by one pump. There aren't any valves on yet but there are going to be. The pump is a Pondmaster Hy Drive 3200. There is too much splash so we need to dial it down. Smaller pump was returned because it just produced a trickle. I designed the entire water feature back in 2004 but it took until fall 2008 to get the columns done. The first liner pond was done in 2004. None of the three planted ponds has ever had pea soup algae but the column pond tried to turn green earlier this year when we cleaned it out completely to paint the pipes black and remove debris from the neighbor's box elder (now cut down). I added black dye from Microbe Lift that I have been using in the greenhouse pond and the green algae stopped.

Hi Henrik! I have never posted in this forum due to fear of being prosicuted for not complying with the strict Japanese Gardening "rules". I have read 5 books on Japanese gardening and have read almost every article I can find on the internet and have concluded a 100% Japanese Garden was not obtainable for me. My garden is more of an Asian Fusion, Although Japanese gardens are quite beautiful they do have a limited scope especially for people that have Non traditional needs. I have two Labs Boomer and Lucky who both love the water :) (reason for building a pond!) I also wanted to have a yard with some grass (not typical of Japanese gardening), the stones I used in building my pond are field stones the books all say to use naturally occouring materials (as filed stones) but say to make sure the stones are smooth to encourage tranquility, the filed stones are not necessarly smooth yet breaking another "rule". Your questions and your post have been quite bennificial to me as I was in the same situation as you. I too have a pond (35feet x 27 feet around 9-10 thousand gallons) that had a "neclace" of rocks around the pond. For Christmas I got two large rocks (2500lbs and 800lbs). You can see in this picture the difference the rocks have made to the pond. I did have one fairly large rock already in place and now the three large rocks form a triangle as required by Japanese Landscape rules. [Click any image to make larger] Before Pictures After Pictures (today) 2500 lb rock 800lb rock I wish I could have gotten the rocks closer or even in the water but due to their weight it was hard enought getting them to the location they are in. Oh yea,.. before anyone yells at me about the "Torri" gate,.. its not a torri gate,.. does not have a center key. I do appreciate all the wonderful Japanese and Japanese inspired gardens I have found in this forum =) Don

FUCHSIA BONSAI There are basically two ways of achieving this: (a) From rooted cuttings. (b) From an established plant which has been growing in a pot or garden. Most important look for small flowered varieties. Method (a) Take a tip cutting in the normal way. Tip cuttings are best taken from new growth, between a quarter and half an inch long. Plant in a peat based compost, you can add fine perlite but this is not absolutely necessary. If using a propagator 60f/15c. They will root perfectly well without a propagator, it just takes a little longer. Watering is best done in the mornings, if they are too wet at night you run the risk of the cuttings getting botrytis and then they will rot-off. When rooted pot up into a 1 or 2 inch pot. Pot-on when roots appear through the drainage holes. Keep moist, never over water. If you put a small plant into a small bonsai pot it will stay small and the main stem will never thicken enough to become a trunk. Therefore carry on potting-up as the plant grows. After the 3 inch pot size add 20% of horticultural grit and 5% of perlite to the soil. Carry on potting up until they are in the 5 inch pot size. According to the variety it can vary between 1 and 5 years before they are ready to be transferred into a bonsai pot. During this time shaping can begin. When using wire on fuchsia main stems/trunks and branches be very careful, the reason being is that they mark very easily and can also become very brittle. Wire more on the loose side than on the tight side. Patience is required. It is better to wire once on the loose side, and at a later date remove and then re-wire again to get the shape you are aiming for. U' shaped and S' shaped wire can be used for thinner branches, for training in a downward or upward direction respectively. During the growing season use quarter strength of any balanced feed NPK 20-20-20 every watering. During growth keep removing large leaves, new leaves come back very quickly and smaller in size. If plants remain in the same growing pot for more than 6 months, renew the bottom third of soil, also removing any roots in bottom third. Six months before it is time for a plant to go into a bonsai pot begin to pot-down, that is gradually transferring to a smaller pot size, so that the plant gets used to living in less soil with less roots. Method (b) If a plant has been growing in the garden or in a large pot for several years, have a good look at the branch/stem structure, bearing in mind the bonsai aspect, look for thick and even contorted stems. You may even find this type of plant at your local fuchsia nursery, especially towards the end of the fuchsia season. Scrape away the top soil, you may find some nice thick roots coming directly out of the lower part of a particular stem which later could be used as nebari(surface root/roots.) Remove all flowers and foliage. Cut out unwanted stems, cut back remaining lateral stems anything between a third/half, according to the size of the plant and your intentional shape for a bonsai, remembering that the new growth will shoot much lower down on the remaining lateral stems. Dig out of the garden or remove from large pot, remove soil and any tap-roots, leave as many fine white roots as possible. Plant into a growing pot with new soil, allowing plenty of room for remaining roots to recover and grow. Place out of direct sunlight and keep moist. After two weeks, water once with a high nitrogen feed, and mist/spray with water, this helps new growth to come back more quickly. Then carry on as above for a 5 inch pot. WHEN TRANSFERRING INTO A BONSAI POT/DISH. Soil mix for bonsai pot - 50% peat based compost - 25% loam - 20% horticultural grit 5% perlite and a small amount of horticultural charcoal (helps to keep the soil 'sweet') Always do any re-potting in the Spring. During summer months outside, place in a well ventilated position, protect from hot pm sun, eg use green shade netting. Water in the mornings, keep moist, never let them dry-out completely. Constantly remove any large leaves and dead or dying flowers. Continue with shaping. The removal of growing tips will delay flowering between four to six weeks according to the variety. Feed during the growing season with a balanced feed, NPK 20-20-20 at a quarter strength twice weekly. A monthly feed of Sequestrene (iron chelate, magnesium and manganese) helps to produce healthy foliage. As fuchsias are deciduous carefully remove any flowers and foliage that are still on your fuchsia bonsai in late Autumn, and prune back anything between one quarter and one third of lateral branches (except for the encliandra type fuchsias, only give a light trim). Give them a real good clean. Remove any moss and debris from the top of the soil. Treat with Provado against any vine weevil larvae that maybe lurking in the soil. Spray branches and stems with tepid water in the mornings, this helps new foliage to come back quickly. As soon as new foliage appears start shaping again. In frost prone areas place in a greenhouse for the winter and keep at a temperature of 45f/8c. If you don't have a greenhouse, a west facing windowsill indoors in a cool room is ok. Keep them just moist not soaking wet. In Spring/early Summer do harden-off the foliage before placing your fuchsia bonsai permanently outside again. When the weather is suitable, put outside during the day, returning them to the greenhouse for the night, until night temperatures stay above 45f/8c. Kath van Hanegem

Some ponds are never cleaned and the ponds and its occupants survive very well. However, a large number of ponds are created with high fish densities or are built in locations were the pond receives a great deal of debris over the year. Even if you start out with just a few fish initially, in a healthy pond they will breed to the point that the number of fish will push the environmental limits of your pond and biofilter. The debris may be the result of leaves blowing into the pond, the die-back of vegetative pond plants as well as fish wastes. It is these latter types of conditions that will necessitate you cleaning the pond eventually. The two most likely time points for cleaning are in the fall, to reduce the amount of accumulated muck on the bottom of the pond as you head into winter, or in the spring to remove material accumulated over the winter from leaves blowing into the pond, accumulated fish waste or catkins and similar materials shed by trees as they leaf out. Cleaning in the fall reduces wastes in the bottom of the pond which may turn anaerobic if sufficient oxygen is not available, creating a breeding ground for harmful bacteria, or which may decompose, releasing ammonia and other dangerous chemicals that can be trapped under the ice. The build-up of these pollutants can lead to fish kills over the winter months. While keeping a hole in the ice over winter will help alleviate the accumulation of gases, cleaning the pond before winter sets in will reduce the overall potential for problems. Cleaning the pond in the spring may help reduce diseases and parasites that often occur as the pond and its biology warms up for the summer, as well as reduce the overall availability of nutrients that stimulate algae growth. The following are a few approaches that have been successfully used to clean the pond. 1. If the pond has a bottom drain periodic changes of water (typically 10% per week) have been used to evacuate the accumulated debris from the bottom of the pond. This simple approach minimizes the amount of material that is removed at any one time as well as adds water to the pond on a periodic basis. Care must be taken when adding water to be sure that you have minimized the addition of chlorine and chloramines typically present in many municipal water supplies. This can be done either by pre-treating the water with dechlorination agents or by using a whole-house water filter with an activated carbon cartridge. 2. Using a net such as used in swimming pools is helpful for cleaning out large materials that have settled to the bottom of the pond. However, if there is a very large amount of debris in the pond you should be careful to either remove the fish or use supplemental aeration to avoid creating significant oxygen deprivation due to stirring up anaerobic or large amounts of oxygen-consuming muck. If you notice a rotten egg smell this indicates the presence of hydrogen sulfide. You should immediately stop stirring up the bottom and get the fish out of the water as soon as possible before continuing with the cleaning. 3. You can use a variety of devices for vacuuming the bottom of the pond. Some of these use a garden hose to create a suction through a venturi device. The potential problem with these devices is that the pond may fill up with too much water during a prolonged vacuuming and you may have a potential problem of adding chlorine and chloramines to your pond if you do not pretreat the water. Wet/dry shop vacs, specially those with an attachment for a garden hose to provide a continuous drain, have also been used. These devices may drain a large amount of water from the pond in a short time and therefore it is necessary to either replace the water or use the garden hose to add the water back into the pond through the biofilter. Care must be exercised in reintroducing water taken from the bottom of the pond in that it may be depleted of oxygen as well as have very high suspended sediment levels that may create problems for the fish. A third approach is to use a pump capable of handling a moderate level of solids (such as a sump pump) to pull water from the bottom of the pond and pass it through a device to strain out the majority of the solids and then recirculate the water back into the pond. Filtering materials such as old sweaters, panty hose, etc. have all been used with some success in this approach. In any of these approaches, if using an electrically powered device running on house voltage make sure that you have it plugged into a GFI protected circuit for your own safety. Ronaye, Steve and David