Flowers and Fishies in Our Back Yard

Good morning,

I finally have a chance to format some of the images I took just before we left home last week.  This beautiful hardy hibiscus is blooming in our back yard.  It and many of its relatives came with the house 34 years ago as a hedge row.  I transplanted a pink one out front that I have kept trimmed to grow in tree shape.

Many years ago I purchased this trumpet vine by mail.  When it arrived it appeared to be a six inch dead stick in a small plastic bag.  I soaked it for a couple of days, then planted it near the gold fish pond and put a small pebble against it to make it lean against a tree.  It has now grown up that tree to a glorious vine of a couple hundred blooms (as of the day I took this picture) reaching at least 80 feet into the sky.  This trumpet vine is also known as a hummingbird vine and the hummingbirds have found it.  If I had more time before we started traveling last week, I would have taken my big camera outside and waited for some little hummers to photograph.  Perhaps next year.

What I was really outside to do that last day at home was to drain part of the gold fish pond and fill with fresh water.  That's an old green garden hose section that I use to siphon out the water.

Although the pond is self-sustaining, I drain a portion of it every year to be able to clip back the greenery around the edges and pull out some of the dead leaves at the bottom.

These fish have been in the pond year round for years.  I bought them as feeder fish about a half inch long.  They are now 8 to 10 inches long.  So pretty! We put a pond de-icer in the pond in winter to keep it from freezing over.

A couple of years ago I published a more comprehensive post about taking care of the pond with the help of Erik, our Black Labrador Retriever.   Check out that post here.  ;)

So, there you have it!  Flowers and fish in our back yard.

What do you have in your back yard?

;),
Lois

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