Wednesday 3 June 2015

Pond Plant Care - 03/6/2015


I sought the expertise and assistance of my Wife this afternoon to help me tend to the Scirpus Cernuus plant in the main pond (wildlife pond project #2). She's the one with the greenfingers in our house and I needed her to divide this overgrown clump for me and repot the resulting smaller clumps.

I carefully removed the plant from the pond and placed it into bucket of water I'd used to wash some some small stones earlier.  These stones would be used later on top of the aquatic compost to stop it all washing away on me.

She then used a knife to cut the plant into smaller clumps and then set about repotting each clump in some plantpots.  Ideally I'd wanted to use some aquatic baskets for the plants but I could only get hold of brown plantpots.

She used some of the small stones I'd washed earlier in the bottom of the pots before adding the plants and the aquatic compost before finishing off with a layer of small stones.

Meanwhile, whilst she was doing this I was carefully sifting the water in the bucket through my net to rescue the tadpoles and other creatures that had been in the plant at the time I'd lifted it out of the pond.  In total I sifted out 7 tadpoles, 3 leeches and several pond snails.

small stones to stop the 
aquatic soil washing away

splitting the plant into smaller clumps

getting the pots ready for planting

one of the repotted smaller clumps

clumps now back in the pond

final positions

my daughter enjoying time by the pond

wildlife pond project #1

My Wife kindly trimmed back the scirpus cernuus plant in the smaller pond too and I added one of the potted clumps and some chinese cobbles.  Hopefully over time this new plant will grow like the existing plant which currently makes ideal cover for my resident frogs.

nicely trimmed

yellow flag iris in flower

late afternoon sunshine

8 comments:

  1. I never realised there was so much involved with pond husbandry. I suppose there must be when I think about it.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, there is always some form of maintenance to be carried out. I never like removing or trimming plants as I always fear the pond will never look the same afterwoods. However, the plants generally grow back as they were.

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  2. Superbe ce petit étang, je voudrai en faire un aussi.
    J'adore ton hôtel à insectes ! Bravo

    Merci pour ta visite sur mon site.

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  3. You have your water iris out as well, I see, like my folks.

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  4. Looks beautiful :) Our yellow flags haven't come into flower yet.

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