SUNSHINE! GARDENS AND PONDS!

Posted on by michellethurman2344

We are entering mid-April and it seems that most of the storms have passed. Temperatures are approaching the 70’s and the sky is a deep blue. Beautiful!

I have been busy potting and arranging pots and making things nice. I bought an electric fountain for the corner behind the front door. Love it! And I made two, very small ponds with solar fountains. I bought some water plants for the ponds and they are starting to stretch up and out. I am eager to see how they look as they grow and produce blooms.

I used two large pots for the ponds. One looks like a half barrel, but is smaller than a real half barrel and a red, plastic pot that has a ceramic look to it. The solar fountains have no storage capacity and spray according to how much sun there is. With all the cloudiness we have had that means they sometimes do little more than spit, but other times they send up a spray nearly three feet into the air which widens at the top of the water arc, carrying the water beyond the width of the pots, spewing water out onto the ground. This empties the pots of their water rather quickly so I am working on a solution. This summer there will be a lot of intense sunshine and between evaporation and the fountains spewing water all over I will be filling those ponds several times a day! I could get larger pots, or….my other solution would be to block some of the sunlight they receive. I hate having to redo them, but I will if it becomes absolutely necessary.

I love gardening and I love working out a design for the layout. I have started my wall along the side yard and have plants already growing in it. It is so satisfying to see it all come together and so beautiful when all the plants fill out the spaces I put them in.

It’s a lot of work, but it’s work I love doing….until it gets too hot. But, by then, everything should be in and growing nicely and all I will need to do is water. And water is expensive these days. Even so, I am happy with the way my yard is shaping up.

Gen. 2:8 “And the Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden….” I love that. God planted a garden! How marvelous! My garden is much smaller than His, I am sure; but I like thinking about God planting a garden. Me and God…together; planting a garden. Nice!


Published by michellethurman2344

I was born in California, but both my parents were born in different areas of rural Oklahoma. My father grew up on a small cattle ranch and my mother grew up in the hills of eastern Oklahoma near the Ozark Mts. Both were born in the 1920's when Oklahoma was still more a part of the 1800's than the twentieth century so I like to say I was born of parents who were the last generation born during the old west. Their old west roots had a huge impact on my childhood. I spent the first three years of my life on my Granny's chicken farm. She was my father's grandmother and she owned 60 acres of alfalfa which she rented out and lived on three acres of barnyard where she raised chickens. There was some electricity, but no indoor plumbing outside of a faucet in the kitchen. The toilet was down the boardwalk in a small shed...in other words...an outhouse. The shower was a room under the water tank in the pumphouse. Granny's little three room house was the only painted building on the property. Everything else was raw, unpainted wood including the two room house my parents lived in. And I loved living on that little farm where I pretty much had free run of the barnyard and sometimes even wandered into the fields surrounding it. The town where I was born is along the Colorado River in the middle of the California desert and across the river from the Arizona desert and while we did live there for the first 12 years of my life, we moved a lot due to my father's employment. He was a big equipment operator and we moved to where the work took him, but usually only six months of the year then we moved back to our hometown. We moved to Northern California in 1958 and I have lived here ever since. I am a mother, a grandmother, have one great-grandchild and recently retired. I am divorced and now live with my youngest sister. My sisters and I like to cruise and take road trips. I am enjoying my life.

4 thoughts on “SUNSHINE! GARDENS AND PONDS!”

  1. I enjoy reading your stories. And your yard is looking great. I’m not a big Gardener but I do have lots of plants. I see you’re enjoying retirement that’s good love you have a blessed day

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  2. Can see you are doing much work in your yard – love the little ponds:) Am not sure if I got back to you on your last comment more than a week ago – sorry, it has been a crazy few weeks, because Hubs had surgery in another town, an hour away, so I/we made many trips for tests, etc. (you can read a little blurb on my All Seasons post, on Sunday (titled All Seasons – April Events). Have a blessed Easter, and hope you will be able to celebrate it with people you are close with:):)

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    1. I loved doing the ponds in pots, but having issues with them….water bugs invaded. Have dealt with them, but I can see I have much to learn in maintaining the ponds. I saw your post about your husband and am glad he is doing well. Happy Easter to you also.

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