Beautiful Water Plants

Today I'm going to show you some picture of the short canal in back of our house. I was tempted to build my dock in this canal but opted to build it on the long canal for a couple of reasons. However, the community has built a walk out pier and so people come there to look at the river and yes, sometimes to meditate. It is really a very quiet and peaceful place.

In the first picture you can see the pier and the canal as it is normally.
A very peaceful place


The same location in the spring a couple of years ago.
These water plants where really beautiful with their purple and white flowers.


Looking back toward the house from the pier.

Close-Up of the blossoms.
Very pretty don't you think?

As beautiful as these plants were, there was a major problem. They had to be eradicated because they are not native to Florida and they were "pushing out" the native plants. These plants were from somewhere in SE Asia and someone had introduced them to the Florida waterways from a fish tank or pond. There was a swift and concentrated effort to make sure all of these plants were killed as one of the native plants this water plant was "pushing out" was the natural food source of the manatee. They have never been seen in our area again, so the effort was successful.

Just another bit of trivia about Florida for your pleasure.