These things happen gradually, but the pond is starting to look quite nice again. The water has cleared up somewhat and I can see the fish again -- it turns out that the heron did not eat all of the big fish, as I've seen two of them hanging around under the lily pads.
As you may remember, observing the pond is one of my biggest time wasters favorite things to do in the garden, as I can be in the middle of some other task and end up watching fish for ten minutes. Want to take a look?
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Here's what it looks like right now (it changes so quickly it seems):
I still need to find better homes for the variegated sweet flag (Acorus gramineus) and the mint patch in the foreground needs to be cut back a bit, but it's looking good to me!
The water lily has never looked this good before:
What did I do differently this year? The raccoons rolled the lily pot down into the deep part of the pond very early this spring, and I think that let the lily escape its pot. Needless to say, this is probably the permanent spot for this plant.
The frogbit has returned, and although is still small it will soon be covering a large portion of the water's surface:
The underwater oxygenator plants have returned too:
This is hornwort, but the anacharis is back too. I don't know why I ever worry about these returning, as they're very cold-hardy. It takes them a while to get going every year, but I'll be pulling these out by the handfuls before too long.
The deer are helping to keep the water hyacinth in check:
I just hope they don't start wading into the water to eat the lily as they did last year.
I reduced the number of potted plants that are in the water, leaving just the three natives. The Pontederia cordata (pickerel weed) looks wonderful right now:
The other two are Sagittaria latifolia and Thalia dealbata -- I'll take a look at them later in the summer.
So wonderful though.
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