Fall Is Coming_Don't Wait! Get Your Pond Ready for Winter
The days are getting shorter along with colder nights. Winter is on its way. As fall sets in, pond life slows down in preparation for the cold weeks ahead. Continue to complete your regular water changes and take additional time to eliminate any debris from the pond.
Use your swimming pool skimmer to eliminate any leaves that fall in to the pond. You should also position a plastic net above the pond to catch most leaves before they fall in. If you opt to do so, take a look at your nearby garden center for the bird netting used to cover fruit trees. Together with your plants blooming and fish healthy and active, your pond will look its best throughout the summer.
How To Winterize Your Plants
Your plants will quit blooming and any spent blossoms still present will set seeds. I generally remove the dead blooms off my plants to encourage the plant to help keep blooming. Water lily flowers drop beneath the surface after they finish blooming and go on to form seeds inside the blossom head. If you remove the spent blossoms, the plant will have energy to continue to make new flowers rather than generating seed.
Because the weather grows colder, the plant will quit blooming completely. In late fall you'll need to prepare your plants for the winter. Hardy water lilies may be left within the pond. Eliminate all dead leaves and spent blossoms from the plants as fall progresses. When there are only a couple of leaves left, move the lilies towards the deepest location of your pond. Lotuses can be treated similarly.
Eliminate all dead leaves and sink the pot to the deepest section in the pond. Your lilies and lotuses won't usually survive getting their tubers frozen. Nevertheless, it's also feasible to keep the tubers in a cool location throughout the winter. and, to complete this, you'll need to remove the plant from its pot. Then eliminate all soil from the tuber. Eliminate all leaves and long roots from the tuber. You can then wrap the tuber in damp newspaper and keep it in a plastic bag. Store the bag inside a cool location, like a basement or garage, for the winter. Do not let it freeze.
Some people use slightly damp peat moss in the bag rather than newspaper, but I have had mixed outcomes with this method.The tubers may get fungus and rot. The trick would be to make sure they're not too wet, just damp for storage.
How to Care For Your Lilies
Tropical lilies should be brought in if you plan to keep them for the subsequent season. You can set them up in a tub or basin and add a growth-promoting lamp, because they'll require a lot of light. Numerous people just dispose of their tropical lilies and purchase new ones the next season, although they may move them to a sheltered location for the winter.
How to Care For Your Irises
Irises are normally required to have their bulbs protected during the winter, so put them in the garage or any other cold spot as well. You can just take the pot out of the water and let it get dry during the winter. Another technique to keep your irises in the winter is to dig a hole in the ground, position the pot within the hole, and lightly cover it with dirt.
The action in your pond will begin slowing down in the fall, but there is nonetheless a lot of maintenance to get accomplished.
Water Hyacinths and Water Lettuce
Water hyacinths and water lettuce will die quickly when temperatures dip into the freezing temperatures, and it's also rather tough to continue to keep them alive indoors over the winter. Most garden centers will have new plants for you during spring, though. They are very affordable as well, so if you really just stop and think about it, struggling to keep them alive in the winter is most likely not even worth the effort.Your other marginals can be left within your pond or transferred to a sheltered location for the duration of winter.
Fall Fish Feeding and Care (Very Important Information)
As the water grows colder, your fish will begin to slow down. This is the time now to start to feed them light foods (high protein) once more, and then stop feeding them completely when the temperature falls to 50°F (10C) or lower. You will not need to feed the fish any more until spring because they don't digest food well throughout the winter, so over-feeding can kill them. There will almost always be tiny bits of natural food they can discover in the pond and this will be adequate for them till spring.
Don't even consider or be tempted to over feed your fish on the occasional warm fall day. The climate will quickly alter, and still the fish will have severe difficulty digesting what you fed them. This CAN kill your fish!
And one final note: Do not add any new fish to your pond within the fall.
Allen has been writing articles for nearly 4 years. Come visit his latest website over at http://www.fishpondsupplies.org/ where you will find great money-saving deals on fish pond supplies,including Fish Pond Pumps,Skimmers, and Aerators at affordable prices
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