Thursday 13 October 2011

A Bit of a Tour - The Pond Garden

Our pond garden is my favourite place on the farm at the moment.  It is pretty and calming and full of wild life.  It is right next to the front gate and driveway so since it is not hidden away we get to appreciate it every day.
Hubby made the pond himself  and the garden around it is filled with some of his favourite plants including a cardboard palm (Zamia furfuracea), a grass tree (Xanthorrhoea), another cycad ( Cycas Circinalis I think) and a few other bits and pieces.  This last cycad is quite old (we think) and my husband saved it from being bulldozed and it has been transplanted a few times.  When we moved here 2 years ago we had to remove all the fronds and the ones you see in the picture below are the first ones it has put out since moving.

Cycas Circinalis
I love the look of all the Hippeastrums when the flower.  Even though the display is somewhat short lived it is spectacular while we have it.
The pond
The pond its self has a few plants in it and the frogs love it and lay their eggs amongst the plants.  Sadly so do the cane toads so we are on constant toad watch and have to remove toad eggs when ever we find them.

Hippeastrums in bloom Cardboard Palm on the left.
We do have to cover the cardboard palm every winter as it is frost sensitive but so far it seems to be surviving ok.
Xanthorrhoea
Our grass tree had only 2 heads on it when we purchased it but this year had doubled and now we have 4.  It seems to be going well and this year we have 4 flower spikes for the birds and bees to feast on.

Well that's it for this part of the tour and I will attempt to show you more in the future.

3 comments:

  1. I love ponds and wish we had room for one. what a pretty place to put it - a landmark to welcome you home. I can imagine the cane toads are a problem. I have heard of building up the sides, but I can't imagine anything would keep them out.

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  2. your pond garden looks lovely, especially your grass tree

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  3. Those spikes on the grass tree are amazing aren't they! Love your pond area, I'm sure it would be enjoying all the rain this season.
    We try and go on a toad hunt at least once a week to keep the numbers down.

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