- [Kevin] Today, the pond life journey begins.
I'm adopting that Koi right there and also that Koi.
I'm sitting here at the beginning of the Epic Pond.
There will be a full video coming out on the main channel,
but we have some watercress in here.
In today's video, I'm gonna put the first fish in the pond
and the very first plants.
And it's time to float these guys in.
I know a lot of people are Koi experts,
so if you have something to say, definitely educate me.
I'm gonna leave them in here for about 15 to 30 minutes.
You'll be in your home soon.
It's been about 15 minutes.
So these guys should be fine.
Swim, swim free, get out of there.
There they go.
Look at that, get out of there.
There they go.
That is so cool.
Oh, they're already starting to explore the whole area,
look at that.
Okay my Koi are getting a little antsy, they're jumpers.
Enter your new environment my friends.
Oh, the moment, look at that.
They look kinda chill.
They're just, they don't really care that much.
Oh, there they go, starting to explore.
Oh, man, this new ecosystem is off to a good start here
at the Epic Pond.
(upbeat music)
We're here, it's actually the next day
'cause we went there and it was closed,
but we are back it's the morning.
This is City Farmer's Nursery, I wanna show you guys around,
I don't think we've ever taken you to this nursery before,
so let's take a peak.
So here's some Ollas
that we've been thinking about carrying on the store,
just because they're so big and classic.
Handmade in Mexico,
which is a lot more authentic
than some of the stuff you find out of China.
It's just like actually where this technique developed.
It's makes a lot more sense.
So if you guys wanna see that on the store, let us know.
We have a couple of the goats.
What's going on there, is it pregnant?
- Yeah. - Hey,
congrats on your future child.
'Cause you look like you're ready to go.
We've got some little burros here.
Their names are Miss Darla and Sir Alfie.
Hey, Miss Darla.
He's like I'm Alfie. (chuckles)
Okay that's what we're looking for baby, the pond plants.
Hey, look at this ones, Snowflake Chocolate Yellow Flower.
Never seen that before, but really pretty.
Almost looks like a little mini Lily.
Maybe it gets to about that size I'm not sure,
you find anything over there?
- There's something called Maris Tail,
it says it's a perennial herb.
- [Kevin] Oh, interesting, Hippuris Vulgaris.
So look at how all these are being kept.
They're being kept in like a little stream of running water.
This one is a Red Melon Sword,
it's so cool getting into the aquatics, dude
because I've never heard of any of this.
- [Jacques] (chuckles) Same.
- [Kevin] Any of this, it's like totally new to me.
What's that guy?
Fiber Optics Rush.
Oh, dude, we should put that...
Yeah, what does it say?
Sun and part shade, moist soil to very shallow water.
We can put that in one of the shallow ponds, yeah.
We're gonna look at this guy here,
I think this is the Papyrus.
Yeah, Compact Giant Papyrus.
I mean, that is pretty nice.
- There's lot of options, actually.
- [Kevin] A lot of options.
All right. It's time to go shopping, baby.
City Farmers is the spot guys 'cause look,
we found these floaters.
I don't know the name of these ones off hand,
but these are the ones that sort of float in the water
and you can put them on the side 'cause look,
you can lift it straight out.
The roots just kinda float.
And then Jacques found...
- They have Taro and lilies. - The kingdom.
Look at this.
They've got Taro?
- Yeah, that's a Calla Lily.
- [Kevin] Oh, Callas.
Then they've got... - This one says it's a Taro,
but maybe they have a better one, but a lot of options.
This might be dangerous.
- [Kevin] So this is the best looking Taro specimen, so far,
this one looks like it is Imperial Taro, grows to 18 inches.
So this is really cool because this is something that,
not only can you eat, but it's a perfect pond plant,
and I'm very, very excited about that.
So what I need to do now,
is start winnowing down what I want
because number one,
there's gonna be some money put on the card
'cause I'm buying a lot of these pond plants.
And I need to figure out how to actually collect them
out of the pond and get them up to check out.
So now begins the selection process.
And it's kinda hard because there's quite a few.
So what I'm looking for here are the healthiest pads.
These ones over here look quite good,
but they look the same as far as the foliage,
you gotta read the tags.
So this one says, Hardy Lemon Mist Yellow,
this one says, Hardy Salmon, Orange Patio Joe.
This one says, Princess,
I'm probably gonna get this one here,
the yellow, I'll go with the salmon and orange.
And if the princess looks good, I'll go with that.
Then we already to put in some of this Water Hawthorn here,
but it's doing really well.
It's really perking up all of these little
sort of split flowers here.
Look amazing and smell...
Just kinda like a sweet vanilla perfumy fragrance.
So I'm gonna get at least one or two more of these
and we'll get three lilies from this section,
and now let's go over here.
All right. Now that we've decided to basically clear
a couple of these bins out,
there are a few more that I wanna look at.
So this is called Snowflake Chocolate
and it looks like there's a few different types of them.
They kinda look like they're related to Lily,
so take a look at the leaf here.
It does look like a little miniature Lily,
but it has that interesting pattern here.
And I believe it's kind of the same deal
where this one says, Yellow Flower.
This one over here is Meteor Red, that's a Water Lily.
This one is a White Flower,
so they're a little bit more affordable,
it's about $18 instead of $40 on the Lily
so I can get a little more mileage
out of my dollar on these.
So I might pick up one or two of these,
but there's a huge Lily right here
that I almost can't say no to
because if we look at this Moondance, Creamy White,
so a different flower color that I've seen,
nice and healthy looking pads, it looks like.
And then also take a look right here,
it's about to bloom.
So wouldn't that be cool to put that in the pond?
And then the first thing it does is throw up
a beautiful Lily flower, I think that would be cool.
And then as you move over here,
we get into all these little marginal plants,
which I'm gonna show you in a closer look.
So the goal with these marginal style plants,
is you could see how they're planted,
I just need to figure out what I'm doing.
This is the Umbrella Palm,
so I could put this like on the side of the pond
and some of the spots that Ed has planned out for us.
This one is a Dwarf Umbrella Palm,
but I guess it's just either it's a little less healthy
or it's a slightly different cultivar, maybe.
Then we've got the Dwarf Papyrus.
I think I gotta have Papyrus in the pond, guys.
This is the Giant Dwarf, over here, we've got Blue Dart.
So this is Blue Rush,
so sort of a nice like reedy ass-looking plant.
Over here, we have Blue Swords Rush.
So it looks like these rush style plants
are just kind of spiky sticking-up style.
And then we have, what we got here?
The Fiber Optics Rush,
I actually really liked this one.
I'm probably gonna have to pick that up.
Okay, the final selections here, we're gonna do four
of these floating lettuce, but I'm gonna get the ones
that have the runners on them here,
so we immediately start to propagate.
See if we can perk up the health of these,
and we get this one here.
I've sort of selected all of these right here.
So I've got the Papyrus, I've got this one here,
which is a Red Melon Sword, I think it looks really cool.
Did get one Taro just to see how it goes.
Hopefully we can do well with this.
I got to have the Fiber Optics Rush,
I gonna have one Cana and then I think that's it.
So I'm gonna calm down now,
and now what we have to do is actually package these up
in all these little bags,
and get the rest of our Lily's over there,
and get our pond going.
Okay, we have everything back.
I need to figure out exactly where to place all this.
It probably won't be final,
we just need to get them in the water
so they're preserved 'cause we've got a storm coming,
but let's get them in.
In goes the Lily.
It's kinda nice, we got a grow bag with it,
which makes it a little bit better of a deal.
We're gonna muddy up the water a little bit.
I'm gonna try to keep these somewhat close to the edge.
And so we get a little more natural cover.
And this is all subject to change,
in fact, it's very likely to change in the future,
but I just want something down here.
First Lily in.
Inside you can see, we haul all these little water snails.
I don't know how many of these are alive versus dead,
but at least having some of these in here,
we'll have to watch if they get out of control,
But some of these will help to...
Yeah, look at that guy, he's alive.
Will help to kinda control some of the algae growth
at the bottom.
So in goes Lily number two, right here.
I think eventually, you won't see the grow bags
because they'll start to kinda cover over everything,
at least that's the goal.
This one here is the Patio Joe, which has the...
I believe the Salmon Orange flower.
I'm gonna try to kinda get like
a little Lily pathway going on here.
So maybe I'll put this one right here.
I'm deciding not to repot,
we do have some stuff from Aquascapes that both
the grow bags and the grow media that we could use,
maybe I will, if I think it needs a refresh
to kinda boost it,
but that probably would come as spring comes up,
the water warms up and it goes into the growing season.
Right, so this is that Water Hawthorn that we had
from our other nursery,
I like the idea of having a zone of it in one spot.
So I'm gonna kinda creep it in this spot over here.
It looks so sad when it's not planted out.
It really, you feel like you killed it.
Sink this in right about there,
maybe in between this rock here.
So I think that looks pretty cool.
Look we've got a little water snail here,
I'll toss him in the middle.
Here's the other Hawthorn,
and I think we'll put this guy right about there.
Never seen something like that, that's pretty gnarly.
It looks alien almost,
but then you've got the classic right here.
And then these are some really young ones.
It's kinda interesting to see how that will grow out.
So I'm pretty excited about this area.
The last two submerged plants for now,
fully submerged at least are these Yellow Snowflake,
they're called Chocolate Water Fringes.
They kinda just look like mini lilies to me,
but I'm going to put them right here, again,
trying to create this area where the fish can come in
and feel safe.
So hopefully they'll feel it's safe
to come up here over time.
Now these are those water lettuce.
So we actually ended up getting these for free
because they said they might die.
They're annuals, and in the cold,
they will actually full dieback
and you have to replenish them every year.
We'll see, can't say no to free.
So the thing about them is you can see how the roots work,
they're just sort of hanging there.
And so you need them to be in an area in a moving pond
where they're not going to move into that water return.
But what they said is if there's a really deep root system,
they might end up lasting and it's a mild climate here
in San Diego, so I'm kinda optimistic that they will,
but I guess we'll have to find out.
It's kind of a nice little look here though.
You've got these really weird,
I don't even know the name of this one,
but it's kinda got this little swim bladdery type of floater
that allows it to float.
They don't look that great again, we got them for free,
but Hey, we'll see if they work.
Next up, we have this Red Melon Sword.
So our pathways right here,
but there's a nicely placed stone here that keeps
this pot about 50% out of the water,
which is what it prefers.
So I'm just gonna test it out,
this is kinda just like a holding area for now.
And then these Fiber Optic Rushes,
I think you want these in an area like a long,
a moving stream, perhaps.
And so I think putting them kinda somewhere right here
could be interesting, eventually lining this path,
but right now really, it's more about just keeping them
in the water so they don't die.
So here we've got the Taro.
I don't know if this is gonna be the best place for it,
but it is kind of an interesting place for it.
There's this little pocket here that I think
it gets enough water movement and I can bury this just
about 50% of the way deep,
which to me seems like it should do fine.
I guess I'm just gonna have to watch and see,
maybe in the summer,
this might not be the best location for it.
So that's that.
And there's only a few more here that we've gotta place.
We have Calla Lily, I think I want this in a place
with like a nice little accent pop.
This kinda sits there.
That's a little submerged, we'll see if it responds to that.
Where to put this for Papyrus?
Probably it should be planted on the pond side,
but right now, I can't really do that.
So what I'll do is I'll just slot it over here,
and I think what I'll do is I'll just place some right up
on the water's edge right here, just to keep them happy.
And the last little piece that Jacques convinced me
to buy here, sorry, we're also building a pathway
at the same time, it's kinda loud.
This was water mint?
What was this? - Hyssop.
- Water Hyssop.
So this one...
I guess we'll see.
We'll see what this tastes like.
Honestly right here is probably fine for now.
So our pond, we have stuff in, is it the final place?
No, I think it looks pretty good.
We'll see how it responds.
We have a rain coming tomorrow, so we got them in.
(upbeat music)
So here we have the first round of plants and fish
into the Epic Pond.
Yes, it does still look a little bit sparse, I have to say,
but let's start out at the top here with our watercress.
What we did with the watercress is actually take it
out of the pot and bury it in this little edge here.
So you can see the bare roots right there.
It's doing quite well,
it prefers that treatment and this water
is slightly running, so that's gonna be totally fine.
Next up, we've got this little guy right here,
edging it out, kind of a stepping stone spot,
so we're just gonna keep him there to chill.
I'm trying to edge our lilies a little bit underneath
this shelf of this cocoa flat rock here,
because I don't wanna see the grow bag if I can avoid it.
We'll see how that ends up going, another Lily right there.
We have the Calla right there.
We have the rush here and yeah, again,
they all kinda look like they're out of place
or they're in pots, which they are.
But I think this area could start to look really cool
with the water lettuce and whatever that one's called,
I'll look it up and we'll put it on the screen for you.
The Taro, if I can get Taro, man, I will be one happy man.
And then over here,
which is probably the most natural looking
and developed area,
we've got the Dwarf Redfern
and you've got that snowflake one,
and then the Water Hawthorn.
And then of course, the Papyrus hanging out right here.
And all the fish are right there, which unfortunately,
Oh, no, no, no, there's a couple.
You can see a couple minnows, actually three
are hanging out right now.
So sometimes they will venture out.
I tend to feed them right around this area
so they can get used to this and come to this area
every single time, seems to slowly be working,
but that's what we got here at the pond.
So I gotta say there is so much to do here at the pond,
but getting even a little bit done and getting
as ecosystem is starting to roll,
just slightly feels really good.
Pretty soon we're gonna have Ed, The Pond Professor
on the Epic Gardening Podcast,
so if you haven't subscribed to that, make sure and do that.
Stay tuned because the full pond build will be going on
on the main Epic Gardening channel.
'Till next time, good luck in the garden
and keep on growing.
(upbeat music)