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Plants and fish, a diary from my parents garden.
André:
To clarify the ants are Formica rufa (wood ant?), and I've never seen them farm any pest on any plant at all. Even though they've got something going on in the Norwegian Spruce, but that tree has been there for at least a century and it looks happy, so I'm not to worried.
Plus sap sucking insects tend to be rather host specific and since i don't grow any other kind of spruce i dont think there's much risk of them transferring insects to something else. I have however seen them conduct mass attacks on nests of Lasius niger (black garden ant?) witch do farm aphids on my rose.
And I don't farm ants, I just leave them alone ;)
reifuan:
welcome to the forum André, looking forward to your pictures. Never knew wood ants had an effect on slug populations. Too bad they seem to prefer sandy soils as opposed to our clay. We could do well with reduced numbers of those nightmarish creatures from the genus Arion.
Anything else of interest living in your ant hill? I've found them very popular with slow worms, especially pregnant females.
André:
No reptiles unfortunately.
This years project is to separate my small fish species from the ones that will grow large, in particular the Leuciscus idus (the blue breed) will eat anything that fit in its mouth . What i did was too build a small pond at the top of the little creek that runs from my filter.
This will house my Notropis chrosomus (Rainbow shiner). These fish are one of the most beautiful fish in the world, and since they only grow to about 6cm and are easy to care for i would recommend them to every one. They only need about 1-1.5m of horizontal swimming-room so they can be kept in small ponds, just read up on fish keeping and go for it :D. I don't have any good pictures of mine but heres a youtube clip to show just how beautiful they are.
I will also keep a couple of Macropodus Erythropterus (Paradise fish) here, these fish need even less room and are really hardy. In fact they where among the first ornamental fish imported to Europe since they could survive being transported in barrels by boat from India. Not that you should give them less care than other fish if you decide to keep them, ofc.
Since I will upgrade the larger pond next year to give the growing fish there some more room, i decided to incorporate a plant filter in the smaller pond. I also wanted a bog-garden so i built a small one at the end of the pond.
088
As i turned out i had the perfect place for a raised bed (where the mustache would go if the pond was a happy mouth), so i just put pondliner over every thing and cut a couple of holes in the mustache area to prevent standing water.
I forgot to take pictures of this part ::)
What it looks like now:
the unfinished part along the fence will become the plant filter.
fish
whats going in the bog
And the anthill :D
André:
Some other random photos.
Rock garden :)
André:
Do any one have any ideas on what to put in the bog and in the raised bed? They get about 2-3 hours of shade around noon, but are in full sun the rest of the time. The compost in both are coarse peat and some kitty litter, so its really acidic. The raised bed will stay damp all the time and the bog is obviously wet. I live outside Stockholm so the plants need to be quiet hardy.
I put a couple of alpine rhododendron in the raised bed and carnivorous plants in the bog but there is room left. The feeling i want to recreate in with the plantings i is that of a alpine heath just above the tree line. Is there any orchids that would be happy in the bog? And any Ericaceae other than Rhododendron that would like the raised bed?
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