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| Written by Kniphofia |
Cheri started to garden during her childhood in San Jose, CA when she noticed that things grow. She moved from Utah when she was 2 years old and was the 5th child of 6 children. There was a prune orchard behind the backyard fence. The children spent their time playing in the orchard and eating the plums before they were harvested for drying into prunes. Also, that time marked her first contact with garter snakes.
The family then moved to another house in San Jose that had a bigger yard, a green house and fruit trees. Cheri says, “I think my first experience besides making mud pies with my little brother, was planting potato eyes.” Later Cheri watched her eldest sister grow yellow pear tomatoes in the first home in San Jose that she lived in.
Cheri’s main curiosity was water. “I loved all my friends backyard ponds. Simple concrete ones, some were just used as our swimming pools. Boy, did they hurt because they had that concrete on them that was made rough. Some were painted turquoise and had a little bridge over it.
From the time I was little we would visit Vasona Park in Los Gatos, CA, near where we lived and there was a stream there that had minnows in it and pollywogs. We would spend our time catching them and bringing them home if we caught any. But they didn't last long in our little minds of fish or reptile keeping. Then there were the hermit crabs caught easily in the tide pools in Santa Cruz. Boy, did they stink when they didn't survive.
My parents were so obliging at my desire to keep my little water creatures. Even a trout I caught in the Sierras and didn't want my dad to kill it. We kept it in a big steel pot and I was supposed to pump air into it with our bicycle tire pump. Well, tired little girls don't stay awake in automobiles when they are traveling home from a vacation of camping.
I still wouldn't let my family eat the trout, it was wrapped up to stay in the freezer.
Another thing that I recall is that we had a canyon house near Lexington Dam in the canyon near Los Gatos. I noticed bleeding hearts growing there and we would find all kinds of wild flowers and one of them was a columbine. Also, there was a creek just below our cabin and we caught big frogs there and avoided the gross banana slugs. It was great fun, except for poison oak!
Anyway, I loved nature and started planting little flower seeds and my mother's seedlings from the store. She was a busy mother and a school nurse, so gardening at this time in her life wasn't on her plate. But when she was younger she did grow a vegetable garden and loved to can."
12 years ago Cheri bought a house on an acre and gave herself permission to put in a little pond. “My father brought a Little Giant pump from California when he followed us to Boise and then I had a torn blue swimming pool liner and access to bringing home granite rocks from the side of the roads.”
Cheri’s water garden/koi pond is: 5ft deep, 21 ft long and 16 ft wide. The 1st upper pool is 2ft deep, 6 ft wide and 6 ft long in a curving fashion, like a ying/yang sign. It spills into the 2nd upper pool with a wide waterfall lip into the koi pond and it measures 9 1/2 ft long, 8 1/2 ft wide and 3 ft deep. The stone work is not on these pools yet. But they hold water and have goldfish and waterlilies in them as well as other pond plants.
All pools have drains, Cheri learned to have them the hard way by having large ponderosa pine trees and a large honey locust tree over them. She has a Pond Supplies of America box skimmer and their PurifallsTM biological filter and a Tetra drain.
The drains in the upper pools are made from shower drains. The pipework can drain the ponds and also recirculate water to all pools via the drains in the upper pools and one big pipe bringing water to a future waterfall or waterfeature of some sort that will be made from granite rocks that she has collected.
“We have the ability to add water volume to the 2nd pool water fall via the drain and that can add drama to the waterfalls when wanted. We can even cut off the water completely from recirculating into the two upper pools and isolate it to just the purifalls and koi pond drain. Also, an extra pipe was added to the purifalls to add extra volume to the the sheet waterfall when desired. Which I love as it magnifies the stones behind it.
We can cut off the water flowing into the drain and just have the PurifallsTM pour into the small stream and rectangular pools and return via the skimmer. We have two pumps. One is 6000 gallons per hour or GPH and the other is a Sequence 2500 GPH. These are not submersible.
The water that is pumped through the koi pond drain goes through a settling cone first that we put filter floss in it. This catches anything large from the bottom and dumb fish that swim into the 3 inch drain passing the protective dome lid. If it is not hooked to the cone, then the water travels through the pump's leaf basket and the fish gets churned until death, or I see it and rescue it.
Then the water returns to the Purifalls TM bypassing our three 55 gallon drums set up to filter large water particles down to very fine fish waste. The purpose is to purify the water, so that the fish aren't swimming in pond water full of ammonia which can burn the fish and eventually weaken them and kill them.
The ammonia comes from the fishes waste products, so to keep the water clean for them and clear for the koi enthusiasts and/or goldfish lover, we need to have a good filtering system for the fish load that I want to carry.
I also have many bog plants and waterlilies along with floating plants such as Parrots Feather, Water Lettuce and Water Hyacinth to filter the water and use up the fish waste to their benefit. They get a lot of nitrogen from the fish waste. If the plants don't use it up, then I get green algae from too much sun and too much fish waste and other debris.
Therefore, I have white filter floss to collect the green algae and baskets before the pumps to collect the dead leaves and other litter that falls into the pond.
Right now the pumps are pulling the water, but as soon as our 6 ft deep pit is dug, the barrels and pumps will be placed at water level and the pumps will push the water back into the pond. Which is better for the pumps. “
Cheri has lots of help in her garden! “As soon as my son could lift rocks or dig dirt, he was digging for me. This was my eldest son, Benjamin. I have 4 sons and one daughter. She didn't help much because she is our princess and doesn't dig dirt, let alone touch a goldfish. My late son, David, has done a lot of help with the digging of my ponds and the collection of rock and stone. We collect the river stone from the Salmon River while on river floats near Riggins, ID. This is the only place that has all the color of stone that I love.
We have collected green, turquoise, purple, burgundy, mauve, white, quartz like with metal in them that glitter in the sun, granite, granite with quartz in it, black with stripes, black with white specks, purple with green and burgundy mottled in it. So many colors that only a picture can show and even still, you would have to see them in person to truly enjoy the splendor of them.
These stones were lovingly gathered and cleaned and prepared for my neighbor, Rod Genther, a stone mason, to mortar around and in my pond. He is a great artist and watching him work his magic is the most relaxing thing a pond lover and gardener can do. I become meserized by the work he can do with a trowel and mortar. What a great talent!
Besides my son David, Christopher has done his part to help, but his heart is more into computers and that sort. So only because of his love for me he will dig some dirt, cut some rebar and haul block and rock to please me.
My son, Regan, is my pipeman and electrician. He has helped at the beginning when he was 2 years old by putting sand in his Tonka Truck and carrying it into my first pond. Since then he has wired up pumps and lighting as well as done the whole plumbing labyrinth of piping surrounding the pond. Connecting pipe after pipe to ball valves and joints, to putting drains in and check valves.
He started the piping when he was 11 and at age 13 is getting better and better at it. But he still won't label them! (Job Security.)
My husband has done his share of digging and bringing home large granite rocks. He knows that they are more valuable to me than the other large rock that goes on a gold band. Which if I didn't have this pond built and rebuilt I could probably afford a very large rock on my left hand. But I love the original one that shows off my short, dirty fingernails and callused hands.”
Cheri loves her pond plants, especially waterlilies. She grows the ones that bloom in shade or 3 hours of sunlight. Then there are bog plants such as cannas, Parrots Feather, Water hyacinths, Water Lettuce, Water Hawthorne, Bacopa and/or Brooklime, Creeping Jenny, Rainbow or Tri-color water celery, Duckweed, Umbrella Plant, Miniature Cypiris, Hardy Cypress, Taros of all kinds, Penny Wort, 4 Leaf Water Clover, and then she likes to stick in Irish & Scotch moss in the bog areas, along with Baby Tears, Star Creeper, Coleus, Heuchera, Asparagus plant and Impatiens which were inspired by a Gardenbuddy and the Nashville Little Ol' Oprah House river ride, there were Impatiens floating in the man made river as part of their tourist spot.
“I also have different grasses and sedges planted in or around the pond too. Sweet Woodruff and Lamium is one of my other favorites around a shady pond. I'm now trying Porcelain Berry Vine, Clematis and Daylilies as another pondside plant.”
Despite having 4 cats and a dog, Cheri has lots of wildlife in her garden. “We have had the mighty blue heron start to fly over our property and the resident hawks attacked him. I was so happy! I didn't want the heron to see my koi.
We have had 11 mallard ducks in our fish pond and they also visit our irrigation pond. We also will get bluegill growing in our irrigation pond when the ditch water brings them in from the Boise River.
We get quail, rooster pheasants, turkey (from a neighbor's yard, that is another story..), garter snakes, frogs, mourning doves, finches, magpies, robins, squirrels, gophers, mice and neighbor's dogs and cats. Especially the water loving dogs. Also, we have had a horse visit and a cow.”
Cheri has lots of future plans for her garden. As for the koi pond, she has two upper pools to finish putting the river stone on the outside walls and also the big wall that will be another waterfall coming into the koi pond. The first upper pool will have a waterfeature also bringing in water from the 6000 GPH pump that will flow into the other pool.
The main koi pond still needs one side finished up with granite stone and pavers after they finish up repiping the drains in the bog pond and 2nd upper pool and then have the tarp guys come back and seal up the liner together. This has to be done before Rod can put up the stone work for the wide waterfall into the koi pond.
All the exposed pipework will be covered with a deck and pavers and a pit will be dug to put the 55 gallon drum filtering barrels and pumps in for protection and efficiency.
Cheri, thank you so much for sharing your garden with us.
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| Written by Kniphofia |
| Topics | Legal |
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