Shorelines | Lake & Garden: Outdoor Oasis

This landscaping story begins in the early 1980s when Charlie and Theresa Converse lived in Rochester, New York. A friend had a koi pond that intrigued and inspired them.

“We were drawn to the koi,” said Theresa, “and we both liked the concept of having a pond and the sound of running water.” 

The couple started with a store-bought pond and one fish, but the koi collection quickly grew to 38 after they purchased additional fish and those had babies. They also rescued damaged koi and nursed them back to health. They decided to add another pond. 

“Everything my husband does is larger than life,” Theresa said. “Pretty soon, he had a backhoe and was building a larger pond from scratch.”

When Charlie retired from his job as line forman for the Rochester Gas and Electric Company in late 2001, the couple decided to move south, in part because koi prefer long, warm summers.

“In New York we only had about three months of weather that was warm enough for them,” said Theresa. “The water has to be 55 degrees [Fahrenheit] for the fish to awaken from dormancy. In Rochester, sometimes it was May before they became active.” 

Theresa discovered Smith Mountain Lake while traveling for her job as a healthcare consultant. She visited Roanoke and and fell in love with the area. In March 2002, they came to look at property. Charlie didn’t plan to be on the water, but Theresa really wanted a lakefront home. 

“Charlie grew up on a lake in New York, so I hired a fishing guide to take him out.  I told him, ‘If you come back with a big fish, we’ll buy a lakefront home.’ He joked that it would have to be a big fish. Six hours later, he came back with a string of three huge fish. When he held them at chest level, the tails touched the ground. So we bought a lakefront lot and built an Arts and Crafts-style house.”

After purchasing a lot in The Water’s Edge, challenges started to arise. The couple’s Rochester house sold before their lake house was finished. They had to move the koi from the sold property, but the proposed ponds at the lake had not yet been built. After some brainstorming, they hit on the idea of temporarily housing the fish in a 4-foot-deep above-ground swimming pool.

Once the lake house was ready, they bought large plastic bins to transport the fish. They put enough water into large plastic bags to cover the fishes’ backs, put one to three fish (depending on their size) into each bag, filled the bags with pure oxygen that would disseminate into the water slowly, and knotted them closed. Each bag of fish went into  separate plastic bins, which were stacked in layers and filled the bed of the couple’s pickup truck. 

“We had no idea what would happen to them,” Theresa recalled. “We drove nonstop for 10 hours to get them to Virginia. It was midnight when we arrived at the house.”

Immediately, the Converses released the koi into another above-ground swimming pool they had prepped in their garage. There, the fish awaited their new outdoor home.

The Converses built a series of naturalistic ponds and streams that wandered through the back woods on their gently sloping lot. After a few years, they decided a more formal design would better suit the style of their house. They drew up rough plans for the design they envisioned, and then brought in Lynchburg-based landscape architect Norman Tharpe to finalize and implement the design with assistance from nearby Lakescapes Nursery. 

“We looked into several people, but chose Norman because he has the most experience at the lake with koi,” said Theresa, noting Tharpe’s 30 years of expertise in design, installation and maintenance of  water gardens and koi ponds around the region.

Unfortunately, the home’s septic lines ran right through where they wanted the upper pond. They solved the problem by building a shallow, above-ground “settling” pond five feet lower than the deck off the back of the house. Well above ground and over the septic lines, the upper pond is too shallow for fish. Instead, the Converses planted water hyacinths, an ideal plant for biofiltration to purify the water that cascades to the fish pond below. The lower pond’s depth (6-8 feet) and steep sides provide no access for wading, foiling local herons that would relish a feast of koi. 

A stone wall hides the mechanics of the raised pond, and blends with the stone fireplace on the deck. To this hardscape, the Converses have planted a garden that focuses on foliage with various textures and myriad shades of green, blue, yellow and red. 

“There’s not a lot of color,” said Theresa, “and no annuals.”

Instead, the couple has planted hostas, euonymous, nandina, spirea, lorapetalum, rhododendrons and azaleas. 

Charlie and Theresa Converse are passionate about koi and about landscaping. These two loves are a winning combination for this year’s Lovely Laker Landscape Contest. The couple takes home $1,000 in credit to use on plants, materials or anything else available at Lakescapes Nursery.

Catriona Tudor Erler is a freelance garden writer, photographer and speaker who divides her time between Smith Mountain Lake and Charlottesville. She is the author of nine books on gardening and landscaping.   

Koi Facts

•    Koi can live 80-100 years; owners often write them in their wills as property to pass on to loved ones.

•    A valuable koi can sell for up to $20,000; they are shipped from Japan on ice to keep them dormant during the journey.

•    A koi is valued by its coloration, patterning and scalation (clarity or shininess of its scales).

•    The word koi or nishikigoi means brocaded carp.

•    Koi first were developed from common carp in Japan in the 1820s.

•    Koi are domesticated common carp (Cyprinus carpio) that are selected or culled for color; they are not a different species but a subspecies, and will revert to the original coloration within a few generations if allowed to breed freely.

Foiling the deer

Charlie and Theresa Converse brought 500 hostas from New York and lost them all to hungry deer. Determined not to let that happen again, they have developed a successful, three-pronged system to stop the pests in their tracks: 

1. Throughout the year, they keep bars of soap (Dial brand) hanging in the trees around the perimeter of the property, replacing them 3-4 times per year. 

2. As soon as the hosta first appear in spring, before the deer have a chance to get a whiff of them, Theresa sprinkles the granular Deer Scram Deer Repellent around the property boundary. She respreads it after every rain. 

3. Beginning in early spring, Theresa sprays Bobbex Deer Repellent, a topical foliar spray, on the leaves of her plants. She reapplies every 10 days.
“I’ve seen a doe and two fawns stand on the edge of the garden, sniff the air and leave,” said Theresa.  

Shorelines | Lake & Garden: Outdoor Oasis

Swimming ban lifted at Lake Mendocino

By Justine Frederiksen

udjjf@ukiahdj.com @justfrederiksen on Twitter

Officials at Lake Mendocino announced Wednesday that swimming is now allowed at the lake, after test results revealed nothing of concern in the water.

According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers San Francisco District, tests completed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife on both samples of the water and of the dead carp that were found at the lake over Memorial Day weekend came back “negative for viruses, toxins and pesticides, and the water quality was determined to be acceptable.

Hundreds of dead carp lined the shores of the lake the weekend of May 24, and the USACE reported at the time that the cause was believed to be the Koi herpes virus.

Supervisory Ranger Chris Schooley said although the Koi herpes virus was not detected in the fish, the USACE still “believes that was the likely cause of the fish die-off, because of the symptoms.”

Schooley said “based on the test results and the fact that no more fish are dying, we feel there is no further reason to prohibit swimming at this time,” adding that the people wanting to use the lake are encouraged to “wear life jackets when on, or near, the water.”

Schooley also urged users to remember that use of fireworks is illegal at Lake Mendocino.

Despite the boat ramps remaining closed, he said lots of people are using the lake so far this summer.

“We have a pretty robust schedule,” he said. “Our campgrounds are about 80- to 90-percent full.”

Swimming ban lifted at Lake Mendocino

Koi Spotted In Lake Bomoseen

Fisheries biologists are asking the public to keep an eye out this summer for a non-native fish in Lake Bomoseen.

The biologists are concerned about koi, a type of brightly colored ornamental fish. They are the same species of fish as the carp that have been in Lake Champlain since the 1800s. Koi are domesticated and much smaller, since they are raised in aquariums, but they have the same growth potential as the carp in Lake Champlain. Earlier this month, a Shoreham man shot a 44-pound carp with a compound bow. It’s the heaviest fish caught in the 45-year period that the state has recorded trophy fish catches.  

Last summer a Lake Bomoseen resident found koi swimming near the shoreline.

“Because they are a domesticated fish, they’re not spooky and they don’t run and hide at the first sound or sight of something, like a native fish would in Lake Bomoseen. These fish were just kind of lazily swimming around on the surface near somebody’s dock and they spotted them,” said Shawn Good, a fisheries biologist for the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife.  Unfortunately, by the time the fish were reported, they couldn’t be found again.

“When you put koi or any aquarium fish into the wild, it can have negative impacts or consequences on the native fish in that lake system.” – Shawn Good, state fisheries biologist

Good said the koi were most likely released by aquarium owners and it’s something that happens far too often when aquarium or pond owners can no longer maintain the fish, or the fish outgrow their enclosure.

“They think it’s good for both the fish and the environment, but it’s really not the case in both. But when you put koi or any aquarium fish into the wild, it can have negative impacts or consequences on the native fish in that lake system,” Good said.

In addition to crowding out native fish, carp are somewhat destructive. They are bottom feeders and eat snails, clams and insects off the bottom. They’ll also eat the roots and shoots of aquatic plants. And in feeding, they they can root up  and sir up the lake bottom, making the water murky.

Koi are also very hardy fish that can withstand low temperatures and low oxygen environments.  Good said lawn and garden shops sell small outdoor ponds that people put koi in, sometimes only 2 feet deep. “In the wintertime that will freeze, almost to the bottom, leaving only maybe six or eight inches of unfrozen water at the bottom, and those koi will stay there all winter in that little narrow band of unfrozen water in the bottom of those ornamental ponds.”

Good said it’s not the first time that domesticated koi have been found in Vermont waters.

“There’s a number of small ponds, mostly private waters and most of those ponds are connected to state waters through a small stream or something like that, so there have been instances in the past where we’ve seen these things get out and they haven’t really spread yet,” he said. “But it’s something that we’re always aware of and constantly trying to work to educate the public on.”

Lake Bomoseen Association has let its members know to be on the lookout for koi, and has asked people to call the Department of Fish and Wildlife right away if they are seen.

Meanwhile, officials are reminding people to never release unwanted aquarium fish into the wild because there’s always a chance that a population will establish which will always have some negative impact on native fish species.

Koi Spotted In Lake Bomoseen