The Leather Oaks Garden -- 2004 Summer Photos

Lots of growth, and a Trifling Wind

This Page Created on January 28th, 2008

Summer of 2004 was the eleventh growing season for the Leather Oaks Garden. Despite all the excitement Neptune has endured in his eleven years on site, he seems to be thriving! That water feature was just what he'd been waiting for, I'm thinking. We took several pictures, trying to get him to break into a celebratory grin or something like. This was the best of the bunch. I hope the big Aqua King doesn't think he'll always be leading off a page, though.

This summer was also marked the continuation of the Pond Society's dreadful decision to move to mid-July tour dates! I rebelled, and dropped my longstanding practice of giving every visitor a personally guided tour. I did put out a stack of leaflets and placed signs suggesting the usual route, though.
So the pond was looking a mite shaggy, there being less time to groom in comfortable weather. Here's how Leather Oaks Pond appeared from one vantage point.

Pipe gets a trifle skittish when folks move around behind his back. He's never really gotten used to being in the center of the Pond, it seems!
I wanted to get this view as it points the way to the new ending of the tour.

A slightly different view of the pond, showing the full "spring freshet" effect of the Rubber Creek as it falls into Leather Oaks Pond.
Two thousand four was also the year of the big algae bloom on Leather Oaks Pond. Isn't it lovely? Not!

Season's Springs is really looking fabulous this summer. That is if your eyes are good enough! The ferns are really loving the moist heat, so even Fazzio Falls is almost obscured.

The new "escape route" for the Pond Tour was along the West side of my house. Last summer, I had made good on my threat to create what I variously termed either a "skeletal" or "schematic" stream. It was coming along nicely, despite my neighbor building an industrial garage three feet from our property line!
The Schematic Stream is particularly effective at night! Be sure and check out the Night Tour, a one-time only guided evening event I hosted the same hot summer. There is a link on the photo.

I got to spend the last six weeks of the 2004 summer in hot, smokey Alaska, instead of Hot, Sweaty Biloxi. So it was a big surprise to get stopped in Alabama on the way home. Seems we had to wait for Hurricane Ivan to blow through. This was the view from my deck steps the morning I finally got home.
There is a link on this photo too, for those who want to see Leather Oaks green but windswept!