At the same time we have been working with the International Waterlily Collection in San Angelo Texas and  Austin Texas on a Super World Waterlily Event in conjunction with LilyFest. Details on this will be coming out in a few days and we already have inquiries from all over the USA, China, and Parts of Europe.

This year at the International Waterlily Collection you will find s many new waterlilies we could not possible name them all. Intersubgenetics, over 40 new Mike Giles Waterlilies including Blue and Purple Hardy waterlilies. No display of anything like this has been seen in the public ever before. New waterlilies from Japan, Thailand, and more wonderful hybridizers. Our event will be from Thursday Sept 13th to Sunday September 16th. There will be over 300 waterliliesshown over these 4 days. We hope to have a special presentation with new hybridizer Mike Giles, new hybridizer Tony Moore, World famous Hybridizer Ken C. Landon and much more.

Larry Nau and I have discussed trying to get to Germany for their “Thai Waterlilies in Germany” festival this Summer. This month Larry also Relaunched his own watergarden nursery website BergenWatergardens.com the premier water garden, koi, and pond resource in western New York State just outside Rochester.

Tamara Kilbane, grower of the International Waterlily Competition plants in Raleigh, NC, has offered her observations and tips for enhanced blooming of Nymphaea ‘Wanvisa’.

       “As far as my observations of ‘Wanvisa’ – it is a very fast growing plant and a good bloomer.  We saw an average of 2-4 blooms open each day throughout the season, which was no less (and in fact more) than what we saw in many of the contest hardies.  Because it does grow so fast, it can become root-bound by the end of the season, which can in turn cause a decrease in the number of flowers while also causing the foliage to mound above the surface a bit. 

          I  really felt that this plant was a stand out in our pond in 2010.  It bloomed steadily (the blooms do open a bit later in the day than other hardies, but it is worth the extra couple of hours of waiting), and the foliage is stunning in its own right.  It is already blooming for us in our pond this year, and removing the eyes that are already forming on the rhizome seems to be helping us to keep it in check while giving us larger blooms.  Because it is a sport of ‘Joey Tomocik’, it remains to be seen how hardy it is in colder climates.  Joe is currently growing it at Denver Botanic Gardens, and many members of the Colorado Water Gardening Society will also be growing the plant this year – it will be interesting to see what their observations are.  Tim is also growing it at Longwood, and Missouri Botanic Gardens also has a plant.”

From Zac:

       There is some great news about Wanvisa, the 2010 Champion waterlily will available to many more than originally thought. The International Waterlily and Water Garden Society bought many of these amazing new waterlilies and have been selling it as a fundraiser.  Initial sales (October-February) were not what they expected and before any plants had been shipped they sold off a number of plants to wholesalers and collectors.

       Luckily for the budget wise, Wanvisa is one of the most rapid producers of new plants. One single rhizome can create 20 or more plants easily in a 5 month growing season. So with all the plants currently multiplying plus the ones the IWGS has not sold, the price  by spring of 2011 should have the prices down to about the same as almost every other hardy waterlily.  

       Funding has been a problem for the IWGS the past decade and the Certified Aquatic Plant of the Year was one idea for new revenue. The IWGS has yet to come up with a business plan that can support their efforts on a year by year basis. They have stopped charging members for annual dues but have yet to lay out a benefit to members other than a quartely Journal and Annual symposium. The speakers at the events are good and the 2010 Symposium was a hit at the International Waterlily Collection in San Angelo. The prior year in Chicago the number of waterlilies to be seen at the event was somewhat low. Once a fan of the IWGS I am hopeful for some internal changes in the organization which seems to lack an outlined focus or direction. The best sources for waterlily information currently remains Water Gardner’s International which has an extensive database however has had a recent short pause in update. The IWGS only remaining strength is in the Journal which continues to provide decent quarterly information.

       Koiphen, American Ponders, InternationalWaterlilyCollection.com , AboutTheLotus.com and Facebook are the only up to date and active goings on outside of regional pond societies. Has Facebook taken the position of the IWGS in social circles? Or has the IWGS lost all focus on its mission and plan for the future? In the coming weeks the society is going to “relaunch” or reboot its website but I have heard of no actual plan on it providing relevant material. We are sure the site navigation will be improved.

        If the 2011 Quindo symposium is a success the society will probably have turned a corner in its financial situation and if the website is improved with content and made interactive they can restore relevance to its brand. We look forward to seeing how the 2011 summer turns out.

       -Zac deGarmeaux

Shortly after our last post came a personal tragedy for our family. Our two year old, one and only nephew died on March 21st of a tragic accident. This is the reason for our delay in spring interests and writing.

We thank all those that know us for your thoughts and prayers. Our friends and family have been of great comfort. We intend to get back to sharing some spring interests right away.

Again – Thank you,

Zac

First unlike anything seen today in the United States, Singapore has finished a world arts center & museum designed in the shape of a giant lotus flower. Sitting along the water front just as a true lotus would the center will hold 21 galleries on exhibit. (image 1 and 2) Part of the Marian Bay Sands which is a hotel and casino in Singapore. The Art-Science Museum resort cost 5.5 Billion US dollars and includes and incredible sky park.

The opening will be in February. A google search Paula pointed out shows some remarkable images of this very large new property and is one of the most impressive structures I have ever seen.

The second is a Lotus Tower in Sri Lanka, India. At a cost of $103 million dollars a communications company will be building this tower beginning in about a month and broadcast media from this new building.

(Photo 3) This structure will be 350 meters tall and the top will house casinos and nightclubs.

The tower is expected to be the 5th largest in the world and a ride to the top will only take about 30 seconds.

On the news this year you might have heard that March-June was possibly the warmest ever in the continental United States. How convenient if you leave out the cold months where Jan & Feb were bitter and ad only above normal months you get above normal news events. If you look at many articles over the past few years news organizations and scientists are overdoing climate change. The name itself is funny as “global warming” has been changed to “climate change” since not all parts of the earth are participating. The ice over Antarctica around the south pole reaches new records in size many years while the artic areas have seen record lows.

The only conclusive satellite data goes back just 31 years to 1979 for precise measurements. The majority of the time period both the Atlantic and Pacific were in warm PDO’s and now the Pacific and soon the Atlantic will be moving into there cold PDO’s.

The sunspot solar cycle has been at a minimum for nearly 18 months. That is longer than normal and if it persists would be somewhat similar to the lack of sunspots during the little ice age.

There are many great sources following the collapse of the global warming theory that CO2 causes much of any warming. “Watt’s Up With That” follows the global sea ice data, solar cycles and ocean temperatures like la nina and el nino that seem to have drastically more to do with warming and cooling. Joe Bastardi the big head honcho at AccuWeather also like to follow more relevant data and posts weekly or more often with amazing accuracy most of the time.

Fall Temperatures

In the UK just two years ago news declared “Winter is Dead”, and cited children will now grow up not knowing what snow is except in rare circumstances.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-512896/Winters-dead-spring-brought-forward-says-Kew-Gardens.html

The earth goes through cycles, the sun goes through cycles, both of which probably have more to do with climate conditions than a gas in the atmosphere that is equivalent in size to the other gases as a hair on the Brooklyn bridge.

As the Atlantic ocean goes into its cold PDO over the next few years more snow should result in the UK and other factors such as more sea ice near the north pole should result. If the solar cycle stays low that may also help.

For Dates visit the IWGS website.

Lori Shontz
The Penn Stater magazine

— At first, all George Griffith wanted was a pond. Just a little one, somewhere in a corner of his family’s land in western Pennsylvania. 

After getting permission to dig one, he saved his money to buy a couple of goldfish to live there.

After a couple of weeks, the fish died. So Griffith – only 8 years old – began studying to find out why, and within a couple of years he was not only breeding his own goldfish, but earning money by selling them to five-and-dime stores, including the one where he had purchased his first pair.

That was only the beginning. Goldfish led to guppies. Turtles. Canaries. Myna birds. Orchids. And water lilies. Griffith paid his Penn State tuition with profits from George’s Aquatic Gardens and Pet Supplies, which made him an important guy in some corners of campus.

The Daily Collegian noted in a 1956 article that Griffith, a 1956 PSU graduate, sold “30,000 goldfish a year” and added “The collegian pastime of swallowing goldfish by fraternity pledges has also boosted his sales.”

The goldfish paid the bills, but they were never his true love and focus.

That was the pond. Griffith has spent his life expanding on that original water garden, and he now has more than 30 lily ponds on his 80-acre property, a former potato farm along a mountain road outside of Ligonier.

“There’s just something magic about a water lily,” Griffith said.

“They’re the diamonds of the water.”

And he doesn’t have just any old water lilies; he develops his own. 

Griffith has hybridized hundreds of them over the years and the dozen or so he has deemed worthy to propagate are part of his water garden. He also has a lotus that’s a direct descendent of a plant more than 2,000 years old.

No, Griffith never does anything halfway. “I love too many things,” he said. “I get too excited.”

Plenty of people are slowing down at his age, 77. But Griffith is still running The Flower Barn, the business in Westmont he owns with his partner, Thomas O’Brien.

That’s an uphill battle sometimes, he said, because of the increasingly popular phrase in death notices, “in lieu of flowers.”

That cuts into profits, but Griffith thinks there’s a bigger cost to society as a whole. 

He explained, “Flowers forever have been an expression of all those things we cannot express as we would like to.”

Griffith has been expressing himself with flowers since he cornered the market on black orchids (which are white orchids dyed) when they were popular in the 1950s. He then moved on to designing flower arrangements for gala events all over western Pennsylvania and beyond

– even at the White House and about

17 states.

“He’s very precise – a perfectionist,” said Donald Miller, a former art and architecture critic for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. 

He has attended dozens of galas marked by Griffith’s distinctive style. “And frankly, that’s what they best do: Make every effort to do it right.”

O’Brien put it this way: “You cannot pull anything over his eyes. From the bookkeeper on down, he is one step ahead of everyone.”

Griffith was only a junior in college when he made his first botanical splash. When word came that President Dwight D. Eisenhower would give the Penn State commencement speech in 1955, Griffith was asked to put together a floral display.

He went big, floating 2,000 water lilies on the pond in front of the president’s home (now part of the Hintz Family Alumni Center). And because the blue and purple tropical water lilies he wanted didn’t bloom so early in Pennsylvania, he had them shipped from Florida.

Life magazine published a photo of Eisenhower and his brother, Penn State President Milton Eisenhower, posing by the flowers.

That’s how Griffith came to have a lotus plant with an ancient legacy. It came from a seed found at the bottom of a Manchurian lake; initial carbon dating showed it to be at least 2,000 years old, and he said it is among the oldest seeds to ever be germinated.

The lotus was growing in Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens in a rough neighborhood of Washington, D.C., and Griffith learned that children were vandalizing the garden. So he asked Milton Eisenhower for help, and Eisenhower enabled him to get a “division” of the rare lotus, which he is still growing.

Griffith’s connection in D.C. grew. In 1981, he and O’Brien decorated the White House for a state dinner honoring the prime minister of Japan. Nancy Reagan, who was famous for requesting specific flowers, regardless of whether they were in season, wanted water lilies. 

Those flowers were blooming, but there was still a problem – they bloom only during the day, and the dinner was at night.

Griffith solved the problem by injecting the floral equivalent of muscle relaxants into the stomata, or base, of the cut water lilies. (He still laughs at the fact that he was “drugging” the flowers as the White House mounted its “War on Drugs.”) But the flowers stayed open, the first lady was pleased, and Griffith and O’Brien have continued to do occasional displays for the White House ever since.

Closer to home, Griffith has specialized in creating spectacular spaces for parties and museums, including for the openings of Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall and the Hunt Botanical Library at Carnegie Mellon.

Miller particularily remembers a gala at the Carnegie Museum of Art for an exhibit of French decorative panels the museum obtained from the ocean liner Normandie. 

The tables were adorned with cornstalks sprayed with gilt paint to resemble huge candelabras, and the unadorned walls were bathed in a bright, Carribbean blue. “Man, was that spectacular,” Miller said. “It was out of this world.”

But Griffith’s finest work might be a private one – his roughly 30 lily ponds. He and O’Brien have built the ponds themselves during the past 25 years and many of the colorful lilies are Griffith’s own. There are hardy lilies (which overwinter in the ponds) such as “Lemon Chiffon,” which is light yellow, and “Rachel Hunt,” which is very large and white. The tropical lilies, which must spend the winter in greenhouses, include the blue-purple ones he has named “Blue Skys” and “Elsie” (as in his friend Elsie Hillman, the Pittsburgh philanthropist). Griffith’s peach-colored lily, created about a decade ago, is named “Tom O’Brien.”

Some of those same flowers will be blooming at his alma mater. He has donated about 100 of his plants to The Arboretum at Penn State, which has a 30-foot lotus pond in the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens. Among those are water lilies that he has developed (they are unnamed for now) and another division of the rare lotus from Manchuria.

Those are varieties that have taken decades to hybridize, but Griffith thinks in terms not of time, but of beauty. “It’s joyful and it’s a love,” he said. “You just hope for the excitement of crossing two plants to come up with a wonderment.”

This fountain in Dubai at the base of the worlds largest building plays the lords prayer (in rotation with other music). Baba Yetu, is actually “Our Lord’s Prayer” spoken in Swahili. If you don’t know, the prayer is referenced from Christian Bible Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4.

As sang in this song but translated into English. You can google the Swahili. 

CHORUS
Our Father, Jesus, who art
in Heaven. Amen!
Our Father, Jesus
Hallowed be thy name.
(x2)

Give us this day our daily bread,
Forgive us of
our trespasses
As we forgive others
Who tresspass against us
Lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from Evil, and you are forever and ever!

CHORUS

Your kingdom come, your will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven. (Amen)

CHORUS

Give us this day our daily bread,
Forgive us of
our trespasses
As we forgive others
Who tresspass against us
Lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from Evil, and you wake the dead (?)

Our Father, Jesus who art…
Hallowed be thy name.
(x2)

Tim Davis, who runs the International Waterlily Collection website and the IWGS.org site has added some great new additions for 2010 for the IWGS site. A step by step revamp of the International Waterlily and Water Garden Society is underway. Executive Director Larry Nau and fellow IWGS members are looking into getting permission from authors of the early IWGS Journals to issue the articles once again but this time for the IWGS website. They may need some help as to some of the early Journals and for what is not stored into the computers the process of retyping stories and articles will take some time. Images if permission is granted can also be scanned and stored. Larry is working on sending the table of contents to Tim right now and if you have some of the earlier Journals stay up to date as it is possible they may need your help.

As discussed in an online chat last night many articles are still of great use today. 

As of Tuesday a new Aquatic Resources Directory was launched where more than just aquatic plant companies can be found. It is the hope of the IWGS that this can become a great resource for the 1500 unique water garden visitors each month to the website to become business traffic. Categories include Aquatic Plants, Koi & Pond Fish, Online E-tailers, Retail Stores, Manufacturers, Pond Supplies, and Lake and Pond Management. New ideas and listings are welcome. IWGS members depending on what level member you are may be entitled to free listings and non-iwgs members can partake in the directory as well.

On a lighter note, Paula Biles, notified the IWGS of some sad news last week, Fred McCorkle has passed away. Fred was an IWGS Journal editor during Paula’s tenure as Executive Director and also worked with her on local activities in Florida. To read more about Fred please follow the IWGS link here.

Two recent national water scared include lake lanier in north Georgia that caused a scare in 2007-2008 that water supply to much of Atlanta Georgia could be suspended and in early 2009 Lake Travis lost almost 75% of its capacity in Central Texas. Both lakes have since recovered but there were months of sever water restrictions and as America’s population grows there will be more concerns away from the coastlines as where to obtain water and how it will be rationed. Entire companies are moving to install rainwater collection systems. Aqua-scape landscape/pondscape contractors across the United States have begun installing rain capture systems ranging from both above ground and below ground collection tanks ranging from hundreds to many multiple thousands of gallons of water. The larger systems can supply homes with water as well as the outside landscape. These installers also are installing large lined basins to capture water as in containment ponds and streams that can also act as landscape beautification projects.

I am not endorsing the Aquascape program over everyone else as they have independent contractors all over the United States and each may or may not install these kinds of systems. I have seen some of the Aquascape projects and the contractors I have talked to and reviewed online through there own stories have been doing some amazing work. Many businesses seem interested in the idea and here are a few benefits they mention as I am sure most require a decent investment.

The Aquascape RainXchange™ Harvesting Systems are a revolutionary design that combines a recirculating decorative water feature with a sub-surface rainwater harvesting collection system.

• Clean, Filtered Water Collection & Storage - While you enjoy the benefits of a decorative water feature, the RainXchange™ Rainwater Harvesting System filters the stored water to prevent stagnation and growth of unhealthy bacteria.
• The RainXchange™ Rainwater Harvesting System reveals only a beautiful water feature that integrates easily into existing landscape.
• Collecting and storing the water underground maintains the integrity and beauty of your home and landscape.
• Wildlife Habitat - Because the water stored in the RainXchange™ System is constantly moving and being aerated, it becomes a sanctuary for wildlife.
• Water Feature Lifestyle – Enhanced landscaping improves property value and water features provide soothing sights and sounds that help you relax  in today’s busy world.
• Environmental Conservation – Capturing rainwater to operate the water feature creates true self-sustainability, drastically reducing the need for chemically-treated traditional water sources.

If you have never seen a drop of water on a lotus, the plant totally repels the drops. Often during a gentle rain it is fun to watch drops swirl around and collect on the lotus until the plant gently lowers the big drops off the leaf. Bigger drops rest on the leafs for hours or days depending upon conditions for evaporation. Scientists have been studying the plants properties to find out if they can recreate the effect and now some from Duke University may have solved the age old question.  

Confucian philosopher once said, “I love the lotus because while growing from mud, it is unstained.”
Skip forward one thousand years and we may now know why.

Jonathan Boreyko, a third-year graduate student at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering, who works in the laboratory of assistant professor Chuan-Hua Chen. The results of the team’s experiments were published early on-line in the journal Physics Review Letters.

“We faced a tricky problem water droplets that fall on the leaf easily roll off, while condensate that grows from within the leaf’s nooks and crannies is sticky and remains trapped. Scientists and engineers have long wondered how these sticky drops are eventually repelled from the leaf after their impalement into the tiny projections,” Boreyko said. “After bringing lotus leaves into the lab and watching the condensation as it formed, we were able to see how the sticky drops became unsticky.”

The key was videotaping the process while the lotus leaf rested on top of the woofer portion of a stereo speaker at low frequency. Condensation was created by cooling the leaf. It turned out that after being gently vibrated for a fraction of a second, the sticky droplets gradually unstuck themselves and jumped off the leaf.

Voila, a dry leaf.

“This solves a long-standing puzzle in the field,” Chen said. “People have observed that condensation forms every night on the lotus leaf. When they come back in the morning the water is gone and the leaf is dry. The speaker reproduced in the lab what happens every day in nature, which is full of subtle vibrations, especially for the lotus, which has large leaves atop long and slender stems.”

If you see any Pond / Frog / Garden cartoons send them in!

CAC Builders of San Angelo Project

 A little background: CAC stands for Certified Aquascape Contractors. These are water garden and water feature builders from across the country trained and certified to install ponds from Greg Wittstocks Aquascapes headquarters in St. Charles, IL. In July the International Waterlily and Water Garden Society toured the Aquascapes Facility and joined CAC members for a meeting and also were invited to a special dinner at Greg’s home in Illinois.

Other than Greg I really did not get to know many of the CAC group. Many families of husband and wife teams that install professional water gardens in hundreds of locations across the country. At the seminar with Aquascapes you could tell it was a tight knit community. This past week the community showed what it was really made of with aquascape contractors traveled from all over the united states by air or by vehicle to west Texas. My friend Cindy from Austin Texas alerted me to the surprise event a few days ago and we have been looking to gather the information to share. Why are these contractors travelling to Texas?  These contractors got together as a surprise to do some work and possibly pay forward some future chiropractic services for their West Texas collegue.

For three days from sunup to sundown they excavated the backyard, removed an old smaller water feature, and brought in all the materials and equipment and more labor than is used on most any backyard.

The surprise was for the pond builder; as his fellow contractors / friends came to the aid by building his doctor a large water garden and feature in San Angelo Texas. Builders from as far away as Washington state flooded down to help with the project. The labor was donated and the group raised funds to pay for the equipment and material needed for the large job.

The water garden industry is full of hardworking, kind people, from across the United States and well beyond stretching internationally. A wonderful community of like-minded souls that are hard workers and good people.  

Thank you to Keri Harris and Scott Hammond of Stone People, LLC, Cynthia Bayhi  (the first Water-Garden-Blog.com roving reporter), Steve Stroupe, The Pond Crew, and more for the great story. Look for a list of volunteers here soon. Cynthia has pointed out though its cold here in the Midwest it was in the 80s and 90s in south Texas this week and there is a Pond Tour October 3rd.

Water Garden Club of South Texas

Local Certified Aquascapes Contractors can be found at WaterGardening.com

This sign was in the window at a Illinois nursery we stopped at.

       If you have researched the different lilies hardy and tropical you will find many crosses produce amazing leaf patters, flower shapes, and a number of variables that seems to be multiplying every year. The waterlily is highly diverse. There are more colors, shapes, and patterns in the tropical lilies and those of us that appreciate this sell just enough tropicals each year to keep the hobby of hybridizing alive. One thing hardy lilies have not been blessed with until one special waterlily on the other side of the world is a blue or purple lily (among other in between and bright colors). I think there is a small chance that if we extend the entire color pallet to the hardy varieties then how will we be able to maintain a sufficient collection of our tropical friends. Already many varieties created in the early and mid 1900s cease to exist and many of those were hardy lilies. Growing up each year I had many tropicals lilies in our ponds. Each year like many gardens it would be completely different. Going to catalogs, and now the Internet you can discover the new colors, textures, lily pad mottling. If everything becomes hardy the cycle will slow down. It may not matter. In a few years we will be able to grow most anything to withstand disease, pests, choose our own color or patterns, but I doubt it will be as much fun as crossing two varieties and getting a half a dozen new plants that look perhaps wildly different.  For now, I am glad there is a blue hardy waterlily. It is nice to see what one would look like. I am happy someone created something that had not been done in over 100 years in attempts. I am happy he and his family can enjoy something special nobody else in the world has. I am also glad that the tropical industry still has its competitive edge, its a damn fun hobby to watch.

Zac

They also introduced the orange snowflake which is much larger than I had imagined. In fact when they shipped some to a friend of mine my first thought was surley I did not request this many lilies. Then I saw the orange buds and realized, oh my this is the orange snowflake! Much larger than the small white and yellow varieties.

This season with their help we added Lemon Bacopa, Rotala, Moneywort, dwarf sagitaria, jungle vallisineria, and my favorite Red Star Ludwigia. Why my favorite? I planted this in Greg and Marcia’s pond in mid May and as a bog plant not a submerged plant. Some creeping jenny is in the bog with it that came back from last year and the two look amazing next to one another. They have variegated society garlic (society flowers) standing above them and the contrast is amazing.

Along with and abundance of new lilies, tropicals are my favorite. Jack Wood, Purple Zanzibar, and others like Southern Charm were instant hits. The tropical night blooming lilies Jennifer Rebecca and Texas Shell Pink have sold to untold numbers of people.

I want to hear from you. I need to know by mid July what plants you want to see. Send your questions to pondmegastore@yahoo.com.   Thank you – Zac

 Many of our readers are getting ready for the Memorial Day Holiday.   Hanging our flags,  putting out our porch furniture, slipping in our screens, cutting grass, planting bulbs and flats of flowers, making our annual trip to the greenhouse for plants and flowers that will beautify our yards and water gardens.  As we add potted plants to our decks and patios, lets not forget the pots of flowers in our ponds.  Whether you use a contained plastic squat pot, open weave container or fabric basket, be aware of the relative  benefits and drawbacks of each.  The purpose of the pot is to keep the soil and plant together and where you want them to be without dirtying the water or damaging the pond.  Just be aware that plants in open weave or fabric baskets many need  transplanted more often.  As plants mature, their roots naturally seek open water.  If you wait too long to transplant, you have to extricate the plant from the container and you may damage the roots. 

     If your pond has large hungry fish, you may want to” top” the pot with some “lava rocks” as these rocks have a sharp surface and it is uncomfortable for the fish to suck them up. 

     Pea gravel is another medium you can use to dress the top of your pot, pretty stones or sand can be used as long as it is dark  in color.  Toppings for your pot should be dark in color as it will make your plant look greener, lighter colored toppings will make your plants look more yellow.  The right choice depends  largely on your personal preference.

      The mediums used for planting pond plants are as varied as the plants themselves.  The best mediums I have found are clay topsoil or sandy garden soil right out of your backyard!  Keep walking right past those potting soils in the  soil section of your garden center,  potting soil will float right out of the pot you put it in, it is intended for plants outside the pond not in it!  Kitty litter, pea gravel, pebbles, rockwool, and cocoa fiber have been used as well.  I have had problems with these mediums in the past, roots tend to get tangled in the rockwoo and cocoa fiber and fertilizer tabs don’t really work well in pea gravel or kitty litter as the nutrients tend to float right out into the water instead of into the plant.  Too much fertilizer in the water instead of the soil leads to algae bloom.  Happy gardening–Happy Memorial Day!

After 2000 years it is still a well kept and highly visited historical garden.

Garden of Gethsemane Today (Anchint Olive Trees continue to grow)

     The most notable events at the Garden of Gethsemane occurred on the night before His crucifixion when Jesus was betrayed. 
     Jesus and His disciples had celebrated the Passover, they came to the Garden.  Jesus took three of them—Peter, James and John— to a place separate from the rest. Here Jesus asked them to watch with Him and pray so they would not fall into temptation (Matthew 26:41), but they fell asleep. Two times Jesus had to wake them and remind them to pray so that they would not fall into temptation. This was especially poignant because Peter did indeed fall into temptation later that very night when three times he denied even knowing Jesus. Jesus moved a little way from the three men to pray, and twice he asked His Father to remove the cup of wrath He was about to drink, but each time He submitted to the Father’s will. He was “exceedingly sorrowful unto death,” but God sent an angel from heaven to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43).

Depiction of Christ praying in the Garden just before the soldiers arrived.

      Afterward Judas Iscariot, the betrayer, arrived witha “multitude” of soldiers, high priests, Pharisees, and servants to arrest Jesus. Judas identified Him by the prearranged signal of a kiss which he gave to Jesus. Trying to protect Jesus, Peter took a sword and attacked a man named Malthus, the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

     Jesus rebuked Peter and miraculously healed the man’s ear. Surprisingly the witnessing this amazing miracle of healing had no effect on the multitude. Neither were they shaken by His awesome display of power as described in John 18:5-6, where either at the majesty of His looks, or at the power of His words, or both, they became like dead men, falling to the ground. Nevertheless, they arrested Him and took Him to Pontius Pilate, while the disciples scattered in fear for their lives.

     The events that occurred in the Garden of Gethsemane have reverberated down through the centuries. The passion Jesus displayed on that momentous night has been depicted in music, books, and films for centuries. From the 16th century, when Bach wrote two magnificent oratorios based on the gospel accounts of Matthew and John, to the present day with the film “The Passion of the Christ,” the story of this extraordinary night has been told again and again.

Spring Snow & Freezes Not Over

The great plains have seen three big snowstorms in the past 10 days as far southas Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, east to Iowa with snow and freezing temperatures into north Texas, now the cold air is shifting back to the east where it had firmly planted itself from November 1st to March 20th. My friends at accuweather have some bad news for warm weather lovers from Ohio south to Georgia. Prepare for another hard freeze in much of the South Monday-Wednesday as it works each night toward the eastern seaboard.

Spring Retreats next few days, proving way to early to plant!

The snow will probably not stick during the daylight hours as the sun is at the same angle it is in late August however at night as the air pushes east if the skies clear there will be temperatures to northern or central Georgia from 27-32 degrees! Hope nobody started the Tomatoes outdoors yet. Each winter seems to get longer and longer and each spring we want to arrive sooner. Starting your plants too early outdoors will result in poor early summer results. If the plants began in a greenhouse somewhere or even germinated indoors by you, a few nights even in the 40s outside can damage some annuals or trick perennials into thinking its fall and stunting their growth. I warn about this in multiple posts, as of Friday I talked with a gentleman in Wisconsin that wants water lettuce (the most sensitive plant I know to cool (not cold) shipped to WI this upcoming week! Ten years ago ,I too,was adding Tropical Lilies to my pond outdoors in late April, on years it seemed we would have no more frost or freeze, they did survive but they also did not put up new vegetation or flowers until almost the end of June. They were absolutely affected by cool / cold weather.