Back yard fixins

Where to start on this one? Quite a bit down, so much more to go. To take it from the beginning, my back yard started out with two Juniper trees. One of them was nearly dead and I had to cut it down. I decided in its place I'd be putting in a Koi pond. Jump ahead quite a few months, if not a year, acquire a few more cats and BAM! Cat Fence.

I snagged the cat fence from Cat Fence In. In retrospect I probably could have made it myself but hey, I'll support a business promoting the safety of cats. Throw a pet door in back and now I have a happy little kitty habitat. I did have to cut back quite a few shrubs in order to clear the fence. Once those were cut down I found quite a few sections of the neighbors fence in ill repair. Since they are renting and the landlord doesn't seem to give two shits about the place, I figured there would be a far better chance of it getting done if I just went ahead and repaired it myself.

In cutting back those shrubs, it left the back yard pretty exposed. Even when the shrubs do grow back I'll have to keep them cut back at a height that the cats cannot use them to scamper up over the cat fence. Taking that into account, I decided I'll be removing those shrubs and replacing them with some Mountain Laurel trees. That will give me the opportunity to set them in a little farther so I can keep them at a safe distance from the fence, as well as provide a lot nicer foliage in the back yard once they're established.

Regarding the pond, I've finally roughed out the final shape for it. Depending on average depth I'm estimating it to be about 1200 or 1500 gallons. That will provide a nice habitat for quite a few decent sized Koi. I'll need to get out there and take some photos of what I have dug so far, as well as photos of what's been removed so I can compare to what was there when I first moved in. That's all the typing I have in me for tonight.

All right, the continuation. I've acquired four, five gallon buckets of Bambusa Oldhamii, from the rad folks at Utility Research Garden. They have been planted as you can see in the gallery by clicking the photo here to the left. One of them is looking a bit sad, but I'm thinking it will pull through. I've heard good things about the hardiness of this bamboo. And while I do live in AG Zone 8B I think it can hack it. There are several key points to this bamboo that made me select it. The first being the size. If properly taken care of this will get 4-5 inches in diameter and between 45-55 feet tall. That's taller than the juniper in the back yard and definitely tall enough to block out the pesky neighbors that I have to suffer, now that I've installed the fat fence.

I'll be installing a drip irrigation line shortly, and will have a fertilizer tank feed directly into that. I'll be able to control the dilution rate of the fertilizer and make sure that the water gets to the roots, and is not just wasted by evaporating off into the air.

Lastly, I'll toss up a current picture of the progress on the pond. I've decided on the shape, as well as the depth, and if this thing ever gets done I should be able to support 4-8 decent sized Koi. I'll toss a Pleco or two in there for fun, as I'm sure they're love it, as well as get pretty big and dinosaur looking themselves. Anyway, stay tuned, and if you have any comments or suggestions, feel entirely free to email me, or register to comment directly.