Garden Centre

Sunday, August 24, 2008

August garden - the pond

I seem to be spending far too much time giving the pond tender loving care! The water level drops as the sun makes the water evaporate (and both dogs and the cats from next door seem to drink an inordinate amount of pond water) and so I top it up with the hose. Then I see some blanket weed, so I go and get a bamboo cane and spend half an hour trying to get it out of the pond, which is like trying to wrap spaghetti round a single chopstick using your left hand only!

Assuming I actually get the blanket weed out of the pond, I then see what it’s been hiding: a couple of yellowing and rotting waterlily pads, so I go and get the net and the long cutters and try to cut through the waterlily stem and catch the rotting leaf in the net, which is a bit like one of those grab machines you get in amusement arcades with which you try to get hold of a Rolex watch and never succeed. It’s absolutely essential to keep going until I succeed though, because if I don’t, the debris from the decaying plant material will add nutrients to the water, resulting in the growth of algae. And because we have fish in the pond we don’t want algae. Finally, while I’m there, I realise that I might as well check the filter for blockages … and that’s most of the day gone!

But there are compensations: the lilies, the mayflies, the sound of the cascade, the dappled light on water … there are worse ways of wasting a day, that’s for sure.

Labels: garden ponds, water plants, waterlily

The All Seasons Gardener at 1:28 PM

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