Plants

	This is St. Francis, protector of my pond.
Here are some pictures of the plants in and around the pond.  I will start with the plants that are in the pond.

I have a mini cattail, marsh marigold, arrowhead, pickeral rush, golden rush, sweet flag, iris (both in the water and out, water celery, floating heart, moneywort, parrot feather, mosiac plant, water lettuce, water hyacinth, frogbit and duckweed.

A floating heart of lillies.
Pickerel Rush and Marsh Marigold with marsh grass
	This is the arrowhead flower.  I took a cutting from the plant in Texas and brought it with me.  It's small, but thriving.

I bought this marsh marigold and after a few days it looked dead.  I could see a hint of green so I cut off the dead leaves and it put out lots of new ones and surprised me with 2 buds.  The first two opened on 9/7/2001 so I'm glad I didn't take it back.  When I bought it I was told he grew it down 2 foot.  After I cut the dead leaves off I raised it to just below the water.  I think that's helped it grow.

Marsh Marigold	This is the pickerel rush flower. It has bloomed continuously.
	What pond would be complete without water hyacinth.  The are excellent for their filtering abilities.    Their flowers are beautiful but only last one day.
And in the water I have anacharis, hornwort and cabomba.
And finally this is a mini dahlia that just blooms like crazy.

Around the pond is still a work in progress.  I have planted a few perennials and lots of annuals to improve appearance.  Next year some major planting will be done.  I am currently pouring over books and landscaping ideas and have my graph paper out plotting what will go where.

This is purple fountain grass.  It is not hardy in zone 5 unless the winter is mild, so I have been collecting the seeds to plant in the spring.  I also have two other ornamental grasses and intended to plant more.   I love the way they look around a pond.

Here is a small flower bed I built and have planted beareded iris for the spring and icicle pansies for color now and early spring.  The cornstalk looking plant grew on it's own and when it was still growing after spending a week under the newly laid liner, I thought it deserves to keep growing.  The white flower pot with the rabbit on it covers the electrical plugs.  Notice the No Fishing sign.