Weston's Mark Cox shares how to keep your pond healthy
We’re on a roll now this week as I was literally bombarded by three questions but the one that caught my eye was from Percy. I have changed Dave’s name to Percy to protect his anonymity; anyway Percy is having trouble with his pond.
Earlier on in the week Percy had tried to tackle the green murky water in his pond. It would seem that he had employed the old ‘stir a stick around for a bit because that’ll fix it’ trick. All he had succeeded in doing was wrapping said stick in a putrid smelling green candy floss like substance - which I really don’t recommend consuming.
I felt I needed to put my white lab coat on in order to explain what’s happening in Percy’s pond. But since I don’t own a white lab coat I opted for a blue parker anorak, the one with the zip that goes all the way to the top and makes you look a bit like Peppa Pig when fully zipped up!
Percy’s pond is covered in a thick gooey layer of algae. The first thing to do would be to skim the algae from the top of the water and then add floating plants to the pond.
Percy should aim to reduce the amount of light entering his pond by around half to 2/3. Floating plants by definition do just that... they just float around the pond, bobbing about happily on the surface of the water so these plants are great at reducing light penetrating the pond.
Water lilies are great for reducing light and will survive in your pond all year round unlike the floating plants which don’t tend to be hardy. Water lilies are deep water aquatic plants that will need to be planted from the pond bed.
The next couple of tasks involve putting the kettle on for a brew with a Jammy Dodger and planting oxygenating plants into the pond. Remember gardening is not a sprint. Who’d you rather be... Usain Bolt or Alan Bennett? I know who I’d rather.
Oxygenating plants deprive the algae of the nutrients they need to grow; this deprivation effectively starves the algae. The final nail in the algae’s coffin are marginal plants. These are plants that are planted on shallow shelves around the edge of the pond and these marginals take any remaining nutrients out of the water.
Sometimes though our spring months can be warm and sunny and this has the effect of turbo charging the algae.
During conditions like these there will be little if any cover on the pond so the algae will bloom. Don’t be overly concerned because as soon as the pond plants begin to grow again they will soon take charge and beat the algae back into submission.
For a healthy pond it will need:
l Floating and deep water aquatic plants.
l Oxygenating.
l Marginal plants, planted on shallow shelves.
l To not be overstocked with fish and the fish not to be overfed.
l Dead plants and debris regularly removed.
So that’s it. There’s a lot involved in creating and maintaining a healthy pond. I’m now off to the find my wife as I can’t undo the zip on my parker anorak and I think I’m going to pass out due to heat exhaustion.