Link: http://www.californiawaterscapes.com

Besides being beautiful, koi are fascinating creatures with a history that goes back to ancient China, although the modern, brightly colored fish we call "Koi" were developed in Japan in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by rice farmers who selected attractive specimens of river carp and began to breed them in captivity.

The oldest known koi was a female named Hanako ("Flower Maid"), who died at the ripe old age of 226 years in 1977, after being cared for by several generations of the Koshihara family. The age of a fish is determined in much the same way as a tree – by counting rings. In the case of a fish, however, the rings are found in the scales; it takes a microscope and a great deal of patience to count over 200 of them! [As a historical note, that means she was an adult long before the United States of America came into being.]

Koi enjoyed great popularity in Japan for close to a century before they were much known to the outside world. It was only the invention of modern methods of transporting the fish without causing them harm or undue stress that allowed them to be introduced to the U.S. and Europe in the twentieth century. High quality koi are sold by specialists such as the Pacific Outdoor Living Design Center, where many varieties can be seen in the exhibition ponds. Much of the breeding still occurs in Japan, although European and American breeders have begun to appear in the last decade or two.

Care and Feeding

A diet of algae is often quite enough to keep the fish in a koi pond healthy and happy. Pet stores sell specially mixed food for koi, but check with a specialist before you decide to buy any so that you get the right formulation for your particular pond and fish.

If you have a koi pond, this cooler weather is time to reduce their feeding. As the water temperature falls their metabolism slows. Not only do they not need much food (if any, since they will happily survive on a diet of algae from the stones in the pond), but if overfed the extra food will spoil and pollute the water. In really cold weather food can go rancid in the gut of the fish and kill them, so go easy on the fish food! They will perk up again in the spring when the weather gets warmer.

That said, koi, like all carp, are very hardy creatures. Carp are found all the way from Antarctica to the Equator, in fact, so they can survive temperature extremes very well.

Link: http://www.pacificpavingstone.com

Pacific Pavingstone installs hundreds of driveways, patios and pool decks each year. One of our preferred manufacturers is Angelus Block Co., Inc., and we recently teamed up with them to create interactive touch screen displays for use in retail locations such as Direct Buy, Outdoor Elegance and our own Design Center on Foothill Blvd. in La Crescenta.

The touch screen computer display lets visitors browse photo galleries and videos of interlocking paving stone projects, as well as backyard koi ponds, waterfalls and streams. There are introductions to Pacific Outdoor Living, Pacific Pavingstone and California Waterscapes and a presentation on how we get things done so efficiently while maintaining the highest quality standards in the industry.

We’d love you to stop by and see one of the displays, then send us your feedback in an email.

Link: http://www.pacificpavingstone.com

Once in a while, we are asked to give an estimate over the phone without looking at the actual job. Here’s why we aren’t able to do that.

Paving stones allow tremendous flexibility in walkway and driveway design, patio design and hardscape design. Concrete pavers allow color selection to match the existing property or surroundings, and can be laid as a single color, a color range laid randomly, or with simple or complex paver designs almost as rich as a mosaic. This flexibility, and Pacific Pavingstone’s somewhat fanatical (we admit it!) dedication to doing only the best work, means that our designers have to stay up to date with the available patterns and colors from all the manufacturers we deal with. That’s also why we can’t give a price quote over the phone: without seeing the colors of a home and how it is constructed, there’s no way to help the homeowner pick the right colors, the right pattern, the best design.

Some companies use a computerized representation of the paving stone design in a photograph of the property as a way of showing what the finished job might look like. This is all very well, but no computer screen can show the actual colors accurately, and without a very expensive, fully completed computerized design, what is shown on the screen will only be a rough approximation of the actual layout. It might give you a rough idea, but the finished result could be very disappointing. That is why we insist on bringing samples of the actual stones that will be used on your project, so you can see exactly what they look like and how the colors will blend with what you already have.

Other factors, like the slope of the ground, drainage (existing or not), the condition of the subsoil and the expected load, all influence the design, so our designers are also trained in the technical know-how to determine what will work best for any given project.

The customer, whether home owner, architect or commercial contractor, almost always has to weigh the cost of a particular design against the available budget. That’s when seeing the actual stones is invaluable. That less expensive option might give your project a perfect look, but you won’t know until you see the real thing.

Meanwhile, our website has galleries of photographs showing driveway designs, patio and walkway designs, and pool deck designs, as well as a page that will show you many types and styles of concrete paving stone.