… picking up a lot of Ponderosa needles. They’re just not “to scale” when it comes to taking pictures. Looks like most of the green stuff made it through the winter, some of it is flowering.

Weather permitting, tomorrow will be play with the water errr I mean clean up the ponds day.

well I’m not home yet but the neighbor sent me this picture.

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/geogeorge/_forumfiles/IMG_3064.JPG)

got to love spring time.

The neighbors sent you a picture so you would remember what your place looked like. Sounds like they finally started missing you. A couple of weeks of your wild all night parties and flashing light shows and they’ll be ready to send you off again.

I filled two garbage bags with needles today, and that was only from about 50 square feet. They are extremely heavy. Probably because along with the needles I rake up quite a bit of ballast.

Down south they bundle them up and sell them as “pine straw” mulch. I’ve even seen that around here on occasion.

Last year I left them down, but this year I have some construction to do and don’t want needles mixed in with the dirt. They do help hold in the moisture, but they make the soil very acidic. In order to get grass to grow under my pines I need to lay on the lime pretty thick and if I forget one application the grass dies off quickly. If you’ve noticed in my pictures, there isn’t any grass left in teh front yard because last year I didn’t put down any lime.

The main pond has been “de-slimed”, on to the one that feeds the waterfall. I have to vary the program, it’s easier on the back.

I love the look of ponds but hate the maint.

Di I understand it correctly that a pair of swans will keep the geese away and eat the slime?

How would I know? Dogs usually keep the critters away, but they don’t eat the slime; too smart for that!