Garden Centre

Monday, October 6, 2008

Autumn ponds and how to care for them

That first warning snap of frost reminded me of a hellish task to come in the week ahead. Already the various plants around the pond are looking a little bit jaded and it’s about time to cut them back, paying a lot of attention to removing all the dead, dying and decaying growth because leaving it to pollute the water can cause the water quality to drop and can even affect the health of our fish. I really hate this task, as it requires pulling up the slimy stems of the water lilies and cutting them off so they don’t rot in the water – it’s supposed to be possible to do this in gloves without getting wet, but I lack whatever gene allows you to remain neat and tidy during dirty work, so I end up with green lily slime from my fingertips to my armpits and with my boots filled with nearly as much water as the pond!

The fish are still moving around a lot, partly because of lunatic owners trying to cut through water lily stems, but their activity will cease as the weather becomes colder and they become torpid. We’ll know when they start leaving the food that we throw in for them, although in mild winters they are greedy enough to keep chomping through until early January!

We have to cover a couple of our plants that are not fully hardy, with straw in old tights which we bend around the plant after it’s been cut back and wedge in between the big stones that surround the pond. And the final task before winter strikes is to fit some netting over one end of the pond which is particularly prone to getting filled with drifting leaves from the apple trees.

Labels: autumn pond, autumn tasks, hardy plants, waterlily

The All Seasons Gardener at 6:54 AM

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