Water garden inspiration

And back in 1997, a Twin Cities couple with a dreamy water garden wondered, is anyone else doing this, creating this space? They started the Minnesota Water Garden Society to share their ideas and their experiences. It's aquatic beauty is what it is. Each year they host a tour for the public to get that same inspiration. Our Shane Wells, she's being inspired and she's inspiring all of us by showing these great gardens to us this morning on this tour. And it is just, it is a delight for the eyes. Good morning, Shane. Good morning. And it's a fun to contrast. The last backyard was big and open. This one feels more like you're walking in, out in nature. So you've got this gigantic pond here in this backyard of White Bear Township. This tour, if you want to come see this one and all the others, by the way, it happens this weekend. So it's Saturday and Sunday, 9 to 5. And there's 10 different sites that they've featured. They are all across the north and northeast metro. And we are going to attempt to walk you up to the top of the pond to give you some of the views of the lake here. But there are some winding pathways that Suraj is going to make his way through to introduce you eventually to the homeowner here, Gary DeGrande. Thank you for having us. Welcome to my garden. Okay. Were you a fish, a water lily, or a pond person first? Well, everything, I guess. I went on a Minnesota Water Garden Society tour probably late 90s, early 2000, and saw all these beautiful ponds and gardens and thought that I could do it myself. So, well, not myself. I had other people help me build the pond. But we built it all by hand. Brought in all these dresser trap rock. We have tons and tons of rock all over the place. Big garden, as you saw, out in front and in back. We have another little pond out in front, which is more sunny, so I can have the tropical water lilies, whereas here we have the hardy water lilies, which are hardy here in Minnesota. And you can see they're just about ready to open up there. Okay, but the fish, people always want to probably know, what do you do with the fish in the winter? There's a lot of them. I bring them in. I used to keep them out in the pond, but then one year a mink came up from back there and wiped out all my fish. So now I bring them in for the winter. But some people keep them out in a tub or whatever with aeration and filtration, and they go kind of dormant in the wintertime, as long as the water is below a certain temperature, and you don't even have to feed them. So some people do that, but I bring them in. And as you can see, I got all kinds of different types of fish here. I mean, some of them were born here in the pond, some of them I bought, and some of them I got from a friend in the Minnesota Water Garden Society. She has a whole bunch of babies every year, and she gave them to me, so I put them in here. And there's about 35, 40 fish in there, and it's just a relaxing time to sit by the pond. You can hear the water. You can feed the fish, and they're always kind of gently moving around, and then when the water lilies start blooming, which they'll do in a little bit here when we get a little bit more sun. And then, of course, you're overlooking a lake here. You said this just used to be kind of a hill with shrubs at the bottom, and you've created your own oasis. That's the whole idea behind the Minnesota Water Garden Society tour. If you want to see what people have created in their yards, again, there are 10 different homes featured. This is the 29th tour, and it is happening Saturday and Sunday. Head to mwgs.org to get your tickets and learn more.