by Lindsay Bond Totten
Scripps Howard News Service
A water garden is 90 percent wonderful and 10 percent work. On balance, that might qualify as "low maintenance"--right up until it's time to clean and winterize it. During that brief interlude, it seems surely as if the percentages had been reversed.
Best possible scenario, of course, is to hire professional help to clean and winterize your pond (check with Martha Stewart for further instructions on that). Most of us, however, will have to tackle the job ourselves.
You may have to psych yourself up. (I liken it to a workout at the gym: painful for the duration, but a great feeling of accomplishment when it's done.) My advice: don't contemplate it--just get to it.
Decide first what to do about the debris on the bottom of the pond. If the accumulation is less than an inch or two, just scoop it out--slow, steady movements disturb the water the least--and deposit the nutrient-rich gunk on the compost pile. So it won't sit there in a lump, mix it with chopped leaves to balance the carbon-to-nitrogen ration.
On the other hand, if the detritus is more than two inches deep, the pond should probably be drained and cleaned. Yuck--not what you wanted to hear, right? But if it's allowed to remain on the bottom over the winter, decaying organic matter will deplete the oxygen level and give off harmful gases. A layer of ice on the surface of the pond traps those gases, and that can kill the fish.
Here's a tip: It's a lot easier to capture the fish as the water level gets low. Start draining the pond, then use a dip net to scoop them off the bottom. Hold them in a bucket of pond water during the cleaning process and be sure to put a cover over the bucket so the fish can't jump out.
Scrub the sides of the pond with a stiff brush to get rid of the algae. Be careful of using strong cleaning products--residues can kill fish and be harmful to plants and other aquatic life.
While the pond is drained, remove dead flowers and dying foliage from hardy water plants. If the pond is deep enough, these plants will survive the winter just fine. Sink their pots to the deepest part of the pond, where the water won't freeze.
Most marginal (or "emergent") plants are pretty sturdy and generally accustomed to the freezing and thawing conditions at water's edge. If in doubt, cut back the tops and place their pots in deeper water, next to the hardy water lilies and lotuses.
For the moment, set aside tropical water lilies and other non-hardy plants such as dwarf papyrus, canna and taro. Check and clean the filters so the pump runs more efficiently.
Refill the pond immediately. Flexible and fiberglass pond liners are more likely to heave and crack if they're left high-and-dry over the winter. The same goes for submersible pumps. If you choose not to run the pump during the winter, store it indoors in a tub of water so the parts won't "freeze up" next spring when it's plugged in.
In general, waterfalls and bubblers can operate continuously in all but the coldest weather. Just a few notes of caution:
- Ice formations are beautiful, but they can cause leaking at the edges of a pond. Ice buildups can also shift and loosen rocks, even if they're mortared.
- Fish usually migrate to the warmest layer of water near the bottom of the pond. Be careful not to disturb that layer too much, or fish might perish.
- If you turn off the pump, drain the hoses. Freezing water in the lines can loosen fittings and cause pipes to burst.
When the pond is refilled, here's a simple way to keep the last leaves of autumn from clogging the filter: Stretch lightweight netting above the surface of the water and anchor it securely with rocks. Shake off the leaves every few days.
Many gardeners leave the netting in place all winter, but there's really no need, especially if you enjoy looking at the surface of the water in winter. Once the leaves are all down, and plants around the pond have been cut back, accumulation of debris will decrease significantly. You can remove the netting.
Move tender plants indoors for the winter. Put tropical water lilies in shallow tubs of water and provide cool temperatures and light from a window. Store canna and taro tubers in boxes of slightly damp peat moss.
Of course, you can opt for the "no maintenance" route and just exercise damage control in spring: repair pumps and hoses, replace fish and plants. Try it once; ten percent will seem like a bargain.
(Lindsay Bond Totten, a horticulturist, writes about gardening for Scripps Howard News Service, www.shns.com.)
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