Stocking Your Water Garden’s Pond
With your pond feature ready to be filled with plants, fish, and other accessories it is time to think about filling your water garden.
An important factor to consider is the type and source of water used in filling the pond. If it’s tap water from a town or city source you need to wait seven days before you can think of stocking your pond with fish or plants. Here’s why; tap water has been treated with chemicals, clorine, and the pipes are affected as well. Fill with water, wait seven days and the chlorine will have disappeared and the water have acquired that soft, limpid, palest amber tint that means it is full of microscopic life forms and fit to support more life in the shape of plants and fish.
When you are ready for to stock, plants are the first thing to add. Introducing fish will come in a few days. If you first introduce fish before planting any submerged oxygenated plant, the fish will not allow the plant to survive.
Submerged oxygenated plants often start off as unrooted bunches. It is therefore important that they have time to grow roots and become firmly anchored before introducing fish. If there are fish in the pond before planting, the fish will pull the plants to pieces as soon as you put them in and you will never achieve the flourishing growth of plants, and you need the plants to combat algae accumulations. As a matter of fact any plants you later introduce may suffer the same fate.
It’s also advisable to carry out the planting in the summer months. Unlike shrubs and roses which are planted when dormant, aquatic plants must be moved only when they are actively growing. With few exemptions, planting should be carried out from mid-May to mid-August.
Pond Planting Techniques
It’s very important to consider all methods of planting and choose which technique you intend to adopt, before buying any plants at all. There are two basic ways – one is to cover the floor and shelves off the pond with a soil layer about 6 in. deep. The alternative is to planting in containers with no soil at all outside the containers.
The first method requires covering the floor and shelving off the pool with a soil layer and offers aquatic plants the freedom for substantial growth. It also gives the fish a muddy bottom to stir up to their hearts’ content. This is a healthy, happy pond, but it may not be the ‘look’ you’re going for.
If you’d like a clear and calm pool, the container method is highly recommended. Roots have little encouragement to stray and you can easily spot them if they do. With container method, a plant’s growth is confined to a small area and the plants can be easily re-arranged if you wish to experiment with different colour associations.
Fish have much less change for stirring up mud within the pond – especially true if the potted plant’s soil is topped with gravel or pebbles. The greatest advantage will show itself if, after a few season, the pool needs a general spring clean. There is much to be said for lifting out a dozen planting baskets vs. shoveling out several cubic yards of soppy mud.
Suitable plastic containers, which last much better than boxes, are not expensive. The most popular are square with sides sloped conveniently to fit the recommended 20-degree slope of pool walls.
Comments feed
