I know that part of the natural process of establishing a healthy pond is going through an initial algae bloom, but all the same it’s a bit of a shock to see it.

I hope that it’s not going to get worse before it gets better. I rushed right out today to get more aquatic plants to hog the nutrients in the water. The local pond nurseries are going through a shortage of the submerged plant called Hornwort, but Emerald Gardens had some healthy new anacharis, so I headed right down. It was my first time to the store, and I’m glad to report that they have a good selection of pond plants to choose from. I didn’t get too many pictures at the store (I have kids, and it was hot), but I enjoyed walking through.

They, of course, have a variety of both native and non-native plants. I saw quite a few beautiful plants that I have a suspicion would not be found in a xeriscaped garden. The main attractions, though, were the ponds, and they were plentiful and very lovely. Did I get pictures? Nope. Next visit!

There was a very cool and very tall plant — it wasn’t labeled, but check out this stem:

I picked up some anacharis, a small maidenhair fern, and this dwarf papyrus. It was big, healthy, and hard to resist. 

On the way home (read: detour), I stopped by Natural Gardener to see if they had some horsetail reed (Equisetum hyemale) (they had some at Emerald Gardens, but I was looking for an excuse to go to NG). I should have gotten some at Emerald Gardens, because NG currently only had the giant horsetail in the 1-gallon size I was looking for. But I did buy a Texas Star Hibiscus (Hibiscus coccineus) for the pond. I love how the leaves change in appearance as they mature.

I also went a little crazy and bought several other 4-inch plants to fill up the gaps in my butterfly/hummingbird garden. I usually try so hard to go mostly native, but I ended up gleefully giving in to an assortment of drought-tolerant plants — some native, some not — that I’ve always wanted but hadn’t ever bought, or perhaps didn’t buy enough of: gayfeather, bat-face cuphea (ok, turns out that one perhaps needs more water than it’s likely to get), cigar plant, white gaura, pink gaura, rock rose, and some extra milkweed. I accidentally bought some bee balm — which seems to require moisture, so it might get put over by the air conditioner, pond, or in a container. And I bought a small dwarf bottlebrush (from Emerald Gardens) to go in the container left empty after the dogs ate the dwarf pomegranate.

I am determined to have a healthy garden for monarchs, queens, and other butterflies. My current plants were just not doing as well as I’d like, though — the aphids took their toll this year. I went too long without removing those nasty pests, and the ladybugs had poor timing. I hesitate to show these pictures of my suffering milkweeds after Fairegarden showed such gorgeous pictures yesterday of Butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, complete with butterflies. But she inspired me to go inspect my related plants, Asclepias curassavica, and ugh, they seemed so stunted because of the aphids. Hose came out, I washed the aphids off, at least until I found a ladybug feasting–those aphids stayed. And so I bought a couple of healthy ones from Natural Gardener to add in, just cause. 

I’ll finish with a lovely rock rose (Pavonia lasiopetala) that already looks perfect next to the limestone rocks of the pond, and it’s not even in the ground yet!