Water Features 50

I fear my hopes last week were dashed, for when I got back from Canada it was to find only five fish in the upright tank. But it turned out that only one had died, for Kavi had rescued the other, the Silver Dollar, and put him in the waterfall pond. I have not however seen him since my return, for Kavi tells me he lurks in the little recess at the bottom, which is the home of the catfish, seven black ones and just one white one now, for the other died a few weeks back.

It seems that the Silver Dollar’s fins, as those of one of the carp, had been damaged, but Kavi saw this in time for him. Sadly the carp, though also transferred to the waterfall pond, did not survive.

All seemed well with all the other ponds, but then a couple of days after I got back there was tragedy in the pond by the dining room. I had added several carp there, gold and red ones, and two black catfish. Though one gold one died soon after I put them there, and there was no trace of the third red one I thought I had put there, the other four and the catfish seemed to get along well with the large gourami and the white Malavi.

I had had my suspicions of the latter however, for three others that had been put there at the same time had died, and I have learnt that this breed can be vicious. And so it was not a great surprise when, after I had fed them one morning, and all eight seemed at ease, I found that one of the carp had had its head bitten off. The Malavi was lurking at the bottom, and I had no doubt of his guilt, nor did Kavi, and he was swiftly moved to the pond under the croton tree.

There seemed to me to have been tension in that pond when the dead little carp was found, but it eased after the Malavi had been removed. I was glad to think that the gourami was not a dangerous creature but Kavi assures me that gourami get on well with catfish and carp. I hope he is correct and that for some time at least there will be equilibrium there.

And then, to cap this week of disaster after I got back, I saw in the waterfall pond one morning one of the red carp with its head bitten off. This did not seem to be the action of another fish, and first I thought it was the stork which had come back and been seen lurking by another pond. But Kavi thinks it must be a polecat, who would have been more adept at grabbing with a paw through the interstices of the net that I had foolishly thought provided protection.

There have been four red carp there for some months now, a big bright red one and then three smaller ones in varying shades of red, and now there seem to be just two, so that it looks like one was consumed with the other one, which I show, decapitated. A lesson to me that this net, which I move every day to feed the fish, must be replaced very carefully, leaving no gaps.

The pictures are of the three dead fish of the last week, all carp, with on either side what remains in the upright tank – all five fish there visible – and in the pond by the dining room where, along with the gourami, you see just one each of catfish and little carp.

My Roof Garden on top of the rest 50

There were lots of roses on the balcony when I got back from Canada last week, to my surprise for I gathered there had been a drought, with blazing sunshine. But the day before I returned it had rained, and there has been intermittent rain since, while I suppose the plants were well watered while I was away.

Most delightful of all were three blossoms on the rose bush in the only pot now on the balcony. I show them on the morning after I got back, with Lara in pensive mood, having come upstairs since she now thinks her puppies do not need constant attendance. And then, because this morning ritual is such a joy, feeding the fish with dogs in attendance and both rose and lotus blossoms, I show Benjy and Lara again with the roses the next day, in the last picture here.

The blossoms on the earth are temple flowers, blown down from the tree on the roof garden, which sadly seems denuded now. But I have not as yet been able to get up there, to check on that, and also the other plants, though I do see blossoms on the edge, roses and impatiens and bougainvillea.

Then there were bright red roses on the plant I had placed in the triangular basin next to the little pond. That has produced blossom after blossom since I first got it, after that basin had been fixed so that water would not stay at the bottom. Sadly none of these has been as large as the blossom on the plant when I first bought it.

The pink roses in the middle of the long bed in the east also continue prolific, and I show two blossoms there now, along with some buds. But before that I show a larger perfectly formed flower that was there the day before I left for Canada.

Pink and white and red are enough to go on with, but I see too that two of the orange plants have started to produce buds so I look forward to much colour over the next week or two.

Water Features 49

After the horrors of the period around Christmas, when so many fish died, I waited awhile before trying to build up the tanks again. And when I finally did so, there were more deaths, sometimes of the new fish, and in the case of the upright tank of three of the older ones.

For a long time that had had seven fish of what seemed infinite variety. There were four carp, a big red one and a smaller one, mottled a bit, and also two mottled ones that were predominantly white and yellow respectively. Then there was a differently shaped red fish which Kavi told me was a gold fish. Two catfish made up the group, a white one and a black one, whose mates had died soon after I put them in, several months ago, but this odd pair have survived now for months.

But when I introduced a Silver Dollar, the survivor of the pair in the pond by the dining room, though he added to the picturesque nature of the tank, the equilibrium must have changed. First the goldfish died, and then on the same day, later on in the afternoon, the two red carp. That left a bleak pond, grey and white and black, with just a touch of yellow.

So I got four new fish, two small carp which were predominantly yellow, or rather gold, and two red fish which looked similar but which Kavi assured me were goldfish. And for a few days they brought back shades of the old varied scene, red and gold added to the less vivid colours.

But then one morning I found both the goldfish dead. Kavi told me later that they are sensitive souls, and need more oxygen than a tank with a narrow opening on top can provide. But I do not think this can be the reason, since the bigger goldfish survived there for so long.

Anyway, we are thus back to seven fish, four carp though none of them red, the two catfish, and a Silver Dollar instead of the goldfish. I worry about this last because he moves so very slowly in comparison with the others, and sometimes when he stares out from a side, motionless, I wonder if he is sickening, But he has survived thus far, and his square solidity is somehow strangely satisfying in the midst of so many fish that flash past.

But I have no pictures of him there now, for one tends to take felicity for granted, and it is only by chance that i do have pictures of that tank when it had its seven colourful fish earlier. I hope, now that I am on my way back after ten days away, that I remember to record the present felicity of the fish in that tank now.

My Roof Garden on top of the rest 49

Back after six weeks to the roof garden, where the roses have not been in quite such fine fettle as they were at the beginning of the year. But they were still satisfying, though it was more a matter of single blossoms than the profusion I have shown recently.

The exception was the pot on the north east corner which had again a collection of delightful speckled roses. But now there was also a rose that was just red, as can be seen on the top of the first picture.

This was on the last day of February, and there were also there a couple of red roses in the plant on the south of the bed which has the temple flower tree. That had not been prolific previously, so that it was nice to see it doing its stuff when other bushes were taking a rest.

But what did turn up trumps, for the second time, was the temple flower tree, which again had two splendid bouquets on its two branches. I had not noticed them before, but ten days earlier, when I was up there after some time they were in full flower. And as previously they lasted long.

I show several pictures of them, beginning with the profusion I first saw, followed by a more distant shot which shows also the white temple flower tree that in the next garden. The fifth picture is of the flowers seen from the balcony, some days later, suggesting that I had been careless in not noticing them before I got up to the garden. And then I have the picture taken on the last day of February.

There follow then two single roses, another red one, in the same basin as the last pair, but at the north east corner; and a yellow one though verging now on white from the south west corner of the other basin, a plant I have shown changing colour from bright orange to a mild yellow, now almost white.

Water Features 48

From the lotuses up on the balcony I move to those down below, which have also done splendidly. Not those in the garden, where several plants I put in only displayed the flowers I had brought along, or at most produced a couple more blossoms; but the new pond by the garage. I suppose I should not be upset by the failure of the plants put in ponds in the garden to perform for sun is limited there, but here by the garage there is plenty of sun.

The first one or two plants I put there flowered and then died away, but finally the one I kept there in the basin in which I had bought it did brilliantly, and produced four blossoms one after the other. I have shown these before, so will just show one of these lotuses, along with some of the fish in the pond. 

Just as the last of the four was fading there sprang up towards the further edge of the pond from my seat a bud. It was under the netting there and I thought it would not get through and wondered about moving the net, but on the very next day, well before I thought it would blossom, it had made its way through the net and burst into flower.

It was a beautiful purple and I could not for the life of me remember when I had put the plant in. Janaki thought it was after the white ones in the basin, but that could not have been the case for I would not have bought a plant without a flower. So I assume it was one of the earlier plants which I thought had died away, which had suddenly decided to produce blossoms. This I know has happened in the ponds in the garden, though sadly the most recent example drooped when it had just begun to open.

I had noticed earlier that, when these low lying lotuses succeeded, there were often four blossoms in succession. This had happened in the smaller pond on the balcony, though I think the plant that flowered previously in the one by the garage produced one or two more. Anyway, whatever the truth of my theory, this plant produced four purple blossoms one after the other. And surprisingly the third was followed almost immediately by a fourth, so that for the first time there have been two new flowers together.

I show them together, close up so they look quite wonderful, and then I show them from the other side of the partition between the pond and the basin for flowers, soon after I had planted a rose plant there with two vibrant blossoms. But before that I show the single blossoms that had appeared earlier.

My Roof Garden on top of the rest 48

I showed last week three of the rose plants I acquired last month, one on the balcony and two in one of the new beds in the garden. The fourth plant was placed in the bed Ranji had created on his own when the workmen were tidying up after the new building was almost finished. It looked so good that I decided to match it on the other side but Kavi then suggested that the new construction should be a pond, and that has indeed worked well as was shown exactly two months ago on the parallel series on Water Features that appears on this blog on Saturdays.

The bed for plants had been well planted by Janaki but the puppies took to digging there, and then we found that a stone in the wall was loose and rats too were digging in there and it made no sense to plant anything there until that breach had been retired. But Janaki and Kavi did this on their own, without waiting for the workmen, and then we cleared a space at the bottom of the bed, and I put in there a plant with two magnificent red roses. The blossoms looked magnificent when the plant was placed there, and they continued magnificent for a couple of weeks more.

The first picture shows them in all their glory, and then the next shows them seen together with the purple lotuses that have sprung up in the pond, which I have neglected though I will make up for this on the coming Saturday.  

And now that I have moved down to the ground and to the north side of the house, I should also show flowers that were a joy when I first saw them, though they are not at all colourful. These are the flowers of the mango tree behind the new building, or rather of the northern one of the two that tower there over the building. Suddenly when I was walking in the upper room there three months ago and more, I realized that not all the greenery I saw from the balcony was leaves.

Delicate little flowers had appeared, and though over the days that followed some of them dropped off, others turned soon enough into fruit. I fear the squirrels and the birds will not allow any to ripen enough for us to eat them as fruit, but Janaki did when an unripe one fell make a pickle which I enjoyed, perhaps as much because of pride of proprietorship as for its taste.

And finally I show a tree on the other side, the ambarella tree in the garden which was the first to rise high of the trees I was sent for Christmas in 2021. That and the mango tree did best of those placed in the garden, but then a few months back, perhaps because I had tied it to another tree to keep it steady, it dropped its leaves and I thought it might go the way of the divul and lime and pomegranate trees that had been planted in this garden. But having sprung forward when it was released, so that it hangs over me when I sit on the seat next to the temple flower tree pond, it suddenly put forth some new shoots, which suggest that it will keep going.

Water Features 47

Back after three weeks to the lotuses on the balcony, this week those in the big pond, which began to blossom after there had been four, one after another in the little one. But the first, which had been a beautifully developing bud when I last wrote, was damaged, and the morning I expected it to blossom I went up to find a little crick in the stalk.

That was immensely depressing, but when I went up next morning I found that despite this injury it had bloomed. And the bud nearby which I thought would have taken a few days longer had begun to bloom.

I show them in turn here, and then both together, the broken one held up straight. The next day the other was in full flower, and I show that next, followed by both together, the broken one held up by a leaf, less obtrusively than when I had held it.  

My Roof Garden on top of the rest 47

Finally last week I was able to get a few more roses for the new beds in the garden. Or rather for the one bed there, where I placed two plants, while one of the others I bought went into the bed by the pond beside the garage. The other went into the bed on the balcony where my first rose tree had flourished. But after four years it died, and a couple of replacements died more swiftly, the last orange one having dropped all its leaves and been reduced to a stub last month.

The plants have thus far done well, as can be seen from the contrast between their appearance when I got them and the luscious blossoms they now have. Then there were just buds, though in the orange plant on the balcony, one was just opening. The flower it came with seemed old, but it looked good, and looked good too in the second picture where you see the bud in full flower now.

The two plants in the bed in the garden had very small buds save for one slightly bigger one, seen at the right in the third picture. The fourth shows it in full flower with its companion, tiny in the third picture, further to the right, also now open. The orange one next to this one in that lower bed appears next, the bud now in blossom with its companion just beginning to open.

And then I show the two big roses down below in turn in tall their beauty, followed by a closer view of the orange one on the balcony.

Water Features 46

The little tanks on the balcony also did well this year. The black mollies continued to flourish in the first one I had built, under the long flower bed on the east. They come in several sizes, indicative of their fecundity, and I think you can see in the second picture the littlest towards the bottom. There are also platies, and though I thought the predator had got many of them, it was only that they were fearful soon after the raid, and now they too appear in profusion of a morning.

The next tank along, under the seat on the east, had had catfish and Malavi, but all but one of the latter died, and I moved it, and the catfish of whom all but one had survived was also moved, to the waterfall pond as shown last week. Instead I introduced what I was told were green tiger barb, a species I have come to love since Lohan first introduced me to them. The stripes of the green ones are a joy to see, but they do not show up well in the picture that appears third.

But it shows how they dart about the place. And setting them off are two zebras which were in the same tank at the place I got them, so I added them on, and they provide vibrant colour which does show up in a picture.

The last two pictures are of the tiger barb I got initially, a few months back, and placed in the tank under the seat on the south side. They were shy at first, but now they appear straight away when I drop food in, and I think all have survived, the first two and then four I got later. I show a couple on their own, and then one (and perhaps another below) amongst the other colourful fish there.

But before all these I show the angels which now seem to be happy again. I showed this earlier, with a picture of them at the front of the tank, but the one of them inside was not very clear, and this one displays their brilliance.