thirdgeneration's Blog

So we have a natural stream that the previous owner made into a water feature.They did a terrible job, and it has always bothered me, but we haven't had the money, time or effort to rip it all out and start over. 

On top of that I made the mistake of putting a cape fuchia next to it. I thought it would be perfect because the cape fuchia will take the water, because the stream seeps. Well did it ever like the water, and started to take over the world. It had been in for about 5 years, and every spring I cut it back to 4 inches, to control the size. This winter was really hard on plants and it died back to the ground. Since it was only alive in parts I took the oppertunity to remove it, and put sections in pots, to better control it.

Although the roots were everywhere, so yesterday, I decided to remove roots and well....I ended up removing most of the rocks in the stream, pulling up the pond liner and redoing half of everything.

Although I had to be very careful. When we moved in, we were told that there was a salamander living in the stream. We had seen it several times, and several years ago it had babies. Originally there were 8 and after some time there were only 4. I had cleaned the stream earlier this spring and only found 1. So I knew i had to be careful until I found the 1 and moved it. Well I did, and as I was dismantling the liner I found the other 3, happiness. They are now about 8-10 inches long.

So by the time my hubby got home yesterday, I was putting things back together, but since I changed things I now need more rock. So I will be hunting craigslist today to see if anyone is giving some away this weekend.

And my hubby was laughing at me so hard, because he could see where I started by just pulling roots and it ended up being a little crazy. Thankfully I am not paying the price for loosing my mind and feel good enough to go out in the garden today and get some more accomplished.