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The Birth of a New Pond!
On Tuesday, 8/17/04 a crew of 9 headed out to tackle the NFKPC's latest project, the restoration and redesign of the pond at the Erie County Botanical Gardens!
The crew consisted of Mary Alice Eckert (who joined us less than 1 week ago as a new member!), Eileen Martin, Ed McKee, Ed Schaefer, Roy Seiders, Dave Smith, Connie Weber, Diane & Greg Young.
The "several hour" project started at 10am, and finished at 3pm.
The biggest job was to take the giant Taro that many of you saw on our pond tour, and literally hack it (using a saw), into manageable bits that were hauled away, save one piece, that will re-grow into a future well trimmed pond giant!
The Botans staff were somewhat shocked initially by the removal of the Taro, but were very pleased to observe that we have a wall of Bird of Paradise plants in bloom, which they had not seen before.
We removed more umbrella palms than most nurseries stock, and that was even with leaving 4 large ones in the pond!
Connie, Dave, and myself found out that there are 3 large 4 foot deep depressions in the pond, not the 2 that we thought were there. Connie came through her encounter well, Dave required medical care (on-scene), and a change of clothes, and I came through my multiple encounters with those depressions relatively unscathed. Once we muddied the water by removing the plants, we could no longer see where those depressions were hiding, until usually too late!
Everyone helped us move rock, trim and remove a number of wheelbarrows full of excess plant material, and replant our pond. Those present left with bags of excess rootstock of Taro, Umbrella palms, and Sweet Flag to name a few.
We were excited to learn that there were other aquatics stashed away in the growing greenhouse, which we then added to the pond. These included a tropical water lily, a red hardy water lily, and water lettuce.
All in all we accomplished all we set out to, except the removal of excess Goldfish. The water was so muddied at that point that we could not see the fish, despite the 18 inch depth of the pond!
Our next trip will involve decreasing the surplus Goldfish, checking for diseased fish, treating the pond if necessary, and after that we will add some of our members Koi.
Greg
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