Blue Cavern

The spring is here now for real. My darlings has arrived.

I made this pond myself 5 years ago and after only one year the salamanders found it.

Now these watersalamanders mate in the pond every year. I have both the big and the small "version" of them.
These are protected species in Sweden because they are rare now.

They look like dragons when they are trying to impresse the females.

This is one of the big ones.





Actually the big ones you are not allowed to hold if you go strict by the goverment (länsstyrelsen) policy. You need a permission for this. But you didn´t see this right?

/André

This is the smaller species.

/André

I looked up the translation in english and found that it is called newt.

An amazing thing with these are that if they loose a leg, a new one fully functional grows out. I have seen this on one of mine who lost one of the front legs. I don´t know if it was in a fight or something else. But I later noticed a new one growing out.

It is called regenaration.

/André

Hi André!!!Nice pics...But the truth is that I prefer to hold smurfs on my hands

Oh those are cute!

Dr Who also regenerates!!

I agree Joaquin,

but these are only here now for 2 months to mate and then I have to wait until their children have grown. The smurfs I can hold the whole year.

I started the pump this morning and filled the pond with more water. The stream is mostly to keep the water cleaner but the birds and the insects love to drink there.

/André

I love those pictures.

I think the start of spring is my favorite time of year .

It looks like you have quite a big garden, Andre. Do you also grow your own vegetables. I used to do it for years but then I became lazy

Nice photos Andre..I wish I could re grow some new legs right now (my knees are giving me pains today)

hey Andr'e you have more yard with just your rocks than I do.

I have 1800 m2, so it is quit big, since it is in the middle of the community. This community is a little bit outside the larger town but only 10 km so it is perfect. And we have the channel "göta kanal" going 75 meters from our house. So soon now when the channel opens for boats we can look at boats passing us. But we have one house between the channel and our house so we don´t have the best view but good enough.

And Maureen we also grow our vegetables but not so much because most things gets ready to harvest at approximately the same time. But we have a lot of herbs. This year we will sow carrots, salad, leek, potatoes, peas, tomatoes and maybe some more things. But not so much from each. It is mostly for the children. It is a great way to get them to eat more vegetables. We also have a lot of bushes and trees with fruit and berries. 9 big appletrees, 2 with pears, a couple of different with cherries and plums, a lot of different currantbushes, raspberries etc.

But I think I have told you this before. The reason is my wife. She works as a gardener.

I do the constructions in the garden and she the flowerarrangements.

/André

I think mine is 6 m2 quite small. My back yard used to be bigger but my boss graveled it for parking. I do have about 1/2 arce about 100 miles from here. But it is just land.

3 big frogs also found the pond. They sounds like guinea pigs when they try to impress on eachother.

Edina and I tried to figure out which species it is and we think it is the most common frog in Sweden. It is actually called "common frog".

/André

I used to have frogs in my garden. I must check to see if they've come back.

Awwwww spring time is the best of all seasons. I love your garden, André and your wife has done a great job.

Love your garden andre, What kind of liner do you use in your pond or is it natural? do you plant your own grass in there or does it pop up on it's own? Do you keep any fish?
I have two ponds in my yard that I made myself too, (well I had three but I got rid of the small one as it was nothing but a headache) I have liners in mine so the water don't go away and rocks all around, A few years ago when i bought goldfish for it a little frog came with it and it has been in there ever since. I just got done cleaning and filling it up last weekend and once I get the big pump working and the water fall going I'll take some pictures of it so you can see. and pretty soon i'll be doing my gnome migration too

Gerda,

Before I made this pond the water always stayed in this place for a few weeks in the spring when the snow was melting. So I decided it was a nice place to have the pond. After I had dig the hole i put sand in it and then I put a plastic sheet in it. But after 2 years I decided to make it bigger and also it wasn´t "thickly" enough. It didn´t hold the water good enough. So I this time I first used a thin soft felt sheet and on this I put a little more expensive rubbersheet and this keeps the water very well. This sheet also goes up about half a meter extra all around the pond.

On the sides we put turf, because we didn´t want to see the rubbersheet on the sides. After this we planted some grass and flowers we wanted.

Our intension was to make it look like it is a natural pond so therefore we don´t have any fishes or plants you wouldn´t find if you found a pond like this in the nature.

And if you want salamanders in a pond you can´t have fishes, because they eat the spawns of them. The salamanders need 5 months from the time they mate until the small ones gets big enough. During this time they have a lot of enemies and that is one of the reasons there are not so many left here in Sweden. I think you can find the same species in other countries aswell. I don´t know if they are more common there???

/André

I have not seen salomanders around here, then again I don't go where they would be any either I put the fish in to keep the bugs away. I buy the cheap feeder fish every year and they do nicely in there until it gets cold, then I try to take them in the house to keep over winter. This has worked better for me than trying to keep the pond from freezing over. Mine isn't deep enough to not freeze (only about 3 feet at the deepest) I normally get some floating plants that multiply worse than rabbits but they are not out yet as it is still to cold.

I think I know which plant you mean Gerda.

But for some reason they don´t like our pond that much anymore.

I think the frogs are done now.

I found a lot of frog-spawn in there. We thought it was 3 male ones because they made such a noise but we must have been wrong.

/André

here are pictures of my pond, I finally got the water fall started, still need ot add the plants.
I have two pond 1 larger where I put fish in and then a small one that is more of a rock stream.
on the large pond on the top of the fountain I have a castle standing.

small pond closeup