Azolla added to pond

Today we added some Azolla, one of the pond plants generously donated by Victoria Chen, to the pond.  She also brought us a beautiful blue lilly with a large variegated leaf, and numerous floating plants, which we will add to the pond tomorrow!

Rainbows sprouting

Our Rainbow mix of California Native Seeds at St. Francis statue is already sprouting!

Butterfly rescued!

Students saved a  Gulf fritillary or passion butterfly (Agraulis vanillae) from drowning in the pond yesterday!

Lillies planted!

It took some acrobatics, but we planted 5 Hardy Lillies in the Villa Pond today!

 

Thank you, Class of 2014!

Thanks to a generous gift from last year’s seniors, we have started purchasing plants for the pond!  We just received -

Water Lilies:
White Hardy
Pink Hardy
Yellow Hardy

Bog Plants:
Yellow Water Iris
Azure Pickerel
California Bull Rush
Japanese Var. Sweet Flag
Golden Var. Sweet Flag
Japanese Arrowhead
Equisetum

Small Aquatics:
Parrot’s Feather 

Pennywort

Oxygenating Grasses:
Assorted

Lillies

Bog Plants

St. Francis' planters go native

St. Francis’ statue by the Villa pond has native plants, thanks to the hard work of several students!  The planters were weeded and planted with native plants like buckwheat, fairy dusters, and sunflowers, and several native seeds as well.  These plants were chosen for their beauty and because they are attractive to pollinators like butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds.

 

         

 

2014-2015 AP Environmental Science Field Trip!

The 2014-15 Alverno AP Environmental Science class has taken on the villa pond project as a year-long learning experience.  We began by studying pond ecosystems and nutrient cycles to understand the science of the aquaponics system.

We also visited our wonderful consultant from PCC, Professor Cat, who is in the process of building a new aquaponics system, to get a real-world view of a the important elements.

Professor Cat's Backyard Aquaponics Systems

Our new addition of pond lettuce (thanks Prof Cat!) seems to be surviving the raccoon raids.  Unfortunately, the Azolla and Duckweed were too delicious and our fish finished them off during the summer.  We will need to replace those.

We would love any donations of pond plants (Azolla, Duckweed, Pond Lettuce and Water Lillies).