A NEW WATER FEATURE

Sometimes something good comes out of an unwelcome event. I am referring to the our record low winter temperatures. All the butterfly iris in the front of the dining room window were lost to the freeze. When we took them out they had left their mark on the Indian Hawthorne. In the end the decision was made to remove everything and come up with a new planting. The hawthorne had almost overgrown the little water feature we had made form a large native rock which had a perfect hole in the center. Suddenly the water feature didn't look so hot anymore. The new planting deserved something better and I had just the thing.

Last fall we were helping our son clean up in the alleyway behind his house, when I spotted this hexagonal piece of concrete with a square hole in the center. Years ago it must have held a 4x4" wooden post. The nails which held the post in the center were still there. I just knew it would make a great water feature. It took my husband and son to load it onto our truck. Last week David struggled to bring it into our front garden, positioning it over the original planter buried in the ground. It is supported on a some old blocks, with a wire mesh over the top and an old piece of garden hose passing through that square hole. It was now my job to tie it into the existing dry creek by repositioning the rocks around the feature and arranging some rocks in the hole so that water will flow over the top as well as drop down into the sump. Voila!
The new planting in front of the window will include red yucca , Hesperaloe parviflora and autumn sage, Salvia greggii. In front the Whale's tongue agave, Agave ovatifolia.