Pond Blooms

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The pond is a soothing focal point in my garden and as the days lengthen and warm, pond plants–blooms and foliage–add beauty, food, and protection for wildlife.

Resident and migrating birds bathe in the waterfall and bog. Bees, butterflies, damsel and dragon flies provide airborne energy, while the fish below add movement and color. There are three kind of fish in my pond: feeder goldfish (a whopping $.26/fish), ruby guppies (sort of mini-goldfish), and native gambusia (mosquito fish).

Bees, particularly honeybees, are regular visitors to the pond, choosing wet stones and wide, flat lily leaves that hold bee-sized puddles, as good places to pop in for a drink.

The eye-catchers of my pond flower in pink and purple. Pickerelweed, Pontederia cordata, is a pretty blue-purple native pollinator and aerator plant, the latter trait vital for a healthy pond environment. Pickerelweed sits in the bog section of the pond. For now, there’s plenty of space for water flow, after I separated the plant and replanted four sections with roots. The small fish swim in the area and the large raccoon who visits at night hopes to catch one of those fish. By winter, the plant will have grown and expanded, stems and foliage filling the bog, flowers topping the bunch. Water will still flow through the roots, mostly by way of the roots.

Often, though not on this day, dragonflies and damselflies flit above the water, perching gracefully on the tip of the bloom spike, their iridescence a jewel in the pond’s crown.

Lilies bloom year-round, though there are fewer after a hard freeze. The only time no lilies are found is during the period after I separate the plants, which I have not done this year. It needs doing, as water plants grow quickly and if I don’t separate the lily plants, the chore will be much more difficult next spring. But it’s painful to separate the plants and lose blooming lilies, even if it’s only for a few months. I would miss those lilies.

This pink-petaled, golden-centered beauty is a ‘Colorado’ lily and blooms happily in my Texas pond. I grow several lilies in my garden apart from pond lilies, one is a summer bloomer, the others open in late summer/fall.

I have a soft spot for lilies. My daughter’s name means lily.

For Shoshana: December 30, 1992–April 28, 2006

18 thoughts on “Pond Blooms”

  4. Last weekend I noticed that two wet areas on the way to the Brazoria refuge were sporting our native white water lilies. There’s no convenient place to park along the two-lane blacktop, so I need to find a mid-week time to visit when I can park farther away and walk back to the lilies — without being taken out by the F-whatevers that speed along at 80mph in the 55mph zone.

    This year, a huge area at Brazos Bend was filled with the invasive water hyacinth: Eichhornia crassipes. The pink flowers were beautiful, but what a nuisance. I’d never seen those flowers, but the plant itself often gets washed down into the marinas after flooding rain. Your pickerel weed is such a much better choice — and equally lovely!

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    • First: I love the ‘F-whatevers”–excellent!

      I wish I’d planted the native white originally, but I do like the ‘Colorado’ and it’s been such a good bloomer all these years. I see several kinds of native bees noising around in them, so that’s a winner in my book.

      I’m not familiar with the E. crassipes, I’ll pop over to a different tab and look it up. But generally–boo to invasives!

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  7. I have always dreamed of having a pond in the garden, but have never felt equal to the challenge to build one. Good for you for having gone to the trouble of building it, and for maintaining it. I would also be hesitant to remove some of these beautiful lilies while they are in full bloom.

    Wishing you many visitors to your pond this summer,

    Tanja

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    • Building the pond was a lot of work, but day-to-day, maintenance is minimal. Once a year (though we don’t do it every year…) we clean out the pond and that’s most of a day. From time-to-time, the filters clog, so I have to pull them out of the skimmer and rinse them off with water from the hose. That only happens about 3-4 times/ year. The pond has really added such life to the garden, I can’t imagine a garden without some sort of water feature.

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