Cindi

My sides are for the most part, straight up and down. Instead of shelves, we capped the end of the shelves by foaming in upright rocks. These 'shelves' were then filled with many bags of pea gravel and then we planted the plants directly into the pea gravel. We have a smaller pump - 750 gallons/hr that goes into the shelf/bog area and this goes a long way towards filtering out fish waste.

We live between 2 rivers. The herons go from one river to the other, so they do fly overhead. Only one time did we lose koi to the herons (5 years ago and after that, we put in a sensor sprayer. Since then, we have had no issues.

Yes, you can spend a fortune on koi - I did and I know you can spend far more on koi than I spent. You can also get koi on Craig's list and in various nurseries for not too much. Petsmart and Petco also have koi in their fish section for not a lot of money.

I do understand puttng in catfish and bass as well. A friend of mine lives on the top of a hill and has an acre sized pond. She has the game fish - it is gorgeous and I love sitting on her deck and watching the deer and wild turkey come to drink from her pond.

Carolyn, your pond looks beautiful!
I was only half kidding about the swimming part. We have plans for a bog filtered natural swimming pond, with fish. We have so many other projects on the list that we may never get to that one.
One year we had some bluegill get into our koi pond, probably brought in by ducks when they were eggs or fry. we were able to net them out, and I kept them in a large fish tank for another 2 years. They were really beautiful, and easier to keep than any aquarium fish I had ever raised.
The water lily in your photo sure looks healthy. Do you keep tropical lilies also?

Cindi

We tried the tropical WL. Unfortunately my koi think they taste better than the hardy WL and eat them down to the root.

Carolyn22 said:
Chelle - how deep is your pond?

The one we made for starting the water lilies and fish isn't very deep; perhaps 20", or so. I was surprised by how clean the water looked over the course of the summer; that was one of my biggest concerns with a small container pond.

I have been very surprised at how clean the water lilies keep our pond. We don't have fish, and we've always added blue colorant, which keeps the algae down, and looks pretty with the lights.

Nice pictures Chelle - are your fish sarrassa comets? I love how brightly colored they are..

They're twelve cents each comets of some sort.

I like their colors too, and their "oh, so happy to see me" attitudes! I had six left at the end of the season last year, so I brought them in and set them up in an aquarium for the winter - they're getting huge! They'll need to get back outside as soon as possible this spring.

This is one of our local native waterlilies flowering at my place. They normally don't flower until late or end of summer, but it's been a funny relatively dry one this year. Always hard to get a decent photo because of the extreme contrast between the blue and the white. And you can see where the grasshoppers have been a bit busy.

That's a beauty. Grasshoppers eh? We only get those in massive clouds that dark the sky and consume everything under them. Doesn't happen in the city but nearby, it can be devastating to farmers and home gardeners as well. Luckily it doesn't happen very often, twice I think since I've lived here. The joke around here is that all the Oaxacans are out there gathering them up for snacks. In Oaxaca (another state in Mexico) they deep fry some kind of grasshopper and put a lot of chile and lime on them and eat them like popcorn. I've never tried them, stuff has to pass my mental test before I get to the taste test, bugs flunk.

I think in Asia they eat them too, but I think they're honeyed. My mind has an overwhelming influence too. Don't know how I'd go with them. Certainly wouldn't go out of my way to try.

That lily is growing at the edge of my swamp. Found it as a floating tuber in my dam so thought It'd go well in the swamp. However, there was a 3 metre croc hanging around at the time so I wasn't inclined to go out into the middle of the water to plant it. But it does okay on the edge anyway. When the swamp goes dry in the dry season it just goes dormant underground. Come the wet season and it's off growing again. Just that so close to the grassy edge the grasshoppers find it easy to get to without risk of being eaten by fish.

Beautiful. I didn't know you had crocodille in Australia.

They have those fresh water crocs that are enormous in the rivers, at least that's what I've always read. 3 meters is much larger than I'd want to run into. We have crocs in the mangroves over on the coast, the govt moves them if they know about them away from the tourist areas. I don't think they get as large or as aggressive as the ones in Australia, mostly they eat small mammals. Hopefully raccoons and coatamundis and not cats and dogs or toddlers.

I am not sure which of the lilies around here are native and which have just been naturalized. There are some that look similar to the one pictured but the most common are white or purple day bloomers and white or dark pink night bloomers. Also a smaller light blue one that has very round, small leaves and blooms profusely, unfortunately it also spreads profusely so it is a bit of a pest.

We have 2 species of crocodile here, the Freshwater Croc and the Saltwater Croc. They both live in fresh water but only one will also live in salt water. The Freshie predominantly eats fish but also some small mammals. They only attack people defencively. With the Saltie, humans are prominantly on their menu.

This waterlily is getting ready to open. I'll try to get a photo tomorrow when it's fully open. Same as the previous one so hope the camera will handle the white better.

Zig

Gorgeous color on that waterlily. Do you know if it has a fragrance? I have read that some have fragrances, but I cannot get close enough to mine while they are flowering to find out.

Carolyn, I don't think it does have any fragrance, but I'll check in the morning. I'll have to be careful though, it's in one of my swamp pools. Have to make sure I don't lose my head over it.

that's a beautiful picture, is it a large bloom?

Carolyn, it does have a sweet fragrance, not overpowering though. I got up close with the old snifter, about 10 cms away it was unmistakeable. I never realised it before, thanks for prompting me.

Jonna, it's not large. Not as large as my night bloomer but not as small as some I've seen on sale in shops.

It opened nicely today and I managed to get a reasonable shot without it being washed out.

Those are great shots! It's a beauty.

They are wonderful shots and a stunning plant. I have always liked a purple - yellow color scheme.

Thanks Jonna and Carolyn, the beauty is certainly in the plant. But it hasn't done well with the torrential rain we've been getting. Took the camera out during a bit of a lull in the rain and saw the flower had really been battered. It certainly hasn't stood up as well to it as the night flowering ones did. Maybe the flower itself was a bit older.

A photo of it in its setting during the rain this morning.