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Spring is springing for the water
gardener
Hello, it’s Peter May here again,
I realised the other day how time is flashing by. I went to give a talk on
water gardens to a gardening club in a large village a few miles from London
on Wednesday last week. When I arrived at the village hall, I was very early
and nobody was there apart from a huge frog sitting in the entrance porch –
and the door to the entrance was closed! He looked as if he had been waiting
for me to arrive and wasn’t too impressed with what he saw. If he was under
the impression I was going to be talking about water gardens, he might have
thought that I was going to reveal where the best and nearest ones were. I
had to make it plain that didn’t have clue where any water gardens were at
all in that district apart from the Kennet and Avon Canal that was about a
mile down the road. He seemed to make out that he wasn’t bothered and he was
quite happy sitting in the little puddle he had found in the porch, thank
you.
This is quite true, and I found it quite odd and decidedly ominous in the
circumstances, but it was quite plain that Spring was springing. There was a
milder ambiance in the air despite the added drizzle. It was obviously time
for bedsocks off for Frogs! And here I was, I’ve got a client whose pool I
was meant to clear out and repair before the onset of spring and all the
‘darling little tadpoleywolelys’ start hatching from their slime balls. I’ll
have to get to it toute suite, hopefully getting in there before the Frog
Spawn gets laid; or if it is there, I can bale it into buckets, empty the
pool and then do the repair. But what the hell…..even when they do hatch,
they normally get hoovered up in one fell swoop by a passing badger, or the
newts pick ‘em off one by one until there is only a handful left to make the
final break to freedom as baby froglets. |
So milder eh? Those fishkeepers will all be getting itchy fingers, desperate
to feed their beloved pets. The tough old goldfish can take anything you
throw at them, but the Golden Orfe and especially the Koi Carp just cannot
be fed until the temperature of the water is getting permanently above 7°C
(45°F). Then between 7°C and 10°C(50°F) only feed low protein food or wheat
germ. It is only above 10°C that things really get swinging underwater:
oxygenators start seriously oxygenating; bacteria really get down to
digesting organic matter and the fish metabolism really kicks into gear. The
last thing the fish need in their delicate state after several months in
repose, is a shower of toxic inconsumable fish food from the pool surface
that will sink to the bottom to add a work load to the already pressurized
balance of the pool environment. Uneaten fish food is probably the biggest
the pollutant that regularly gets into the average pool, so this month’s big
tip is to arm yourself with a thermometer and a net. The thermometer will
give you the go ahead on the right temperature to start feeding. Use a good
quality floating fish food that is appropriate for the time of year and feed
it in small amounts, only enough that the fish can eat in a minute or two.
Any that is uneaten, net off. For more details on quality fish food see
Tony Roocroft's article on everything you need to know about koi food
What he doesn’t know about what makes good fish food isn’t worth knowing.
So back to this talk that I was doing on Wednesday, it was odd that I came
across somebody that had a similar problem as one of you in regards to
phantom water leakage problems. One of you had water leaking sideways and
upwards from the pressure of water coming over a waterfall, I presumed
travelling along little interstices (posh word!) between the liner and the
cement and rockwork. This lady had had turf coming down into her pool. When
the soil outside the pool dried out (particularly after the pool had been
over filled by heavy rain or topping up), little capillary reactions that
had set themselves up in the soil below the turf, effectively siphoned the
pool down to a level where the turf stopped.
I have always used a rock edge to prevent this, but the turf thing keeps
cropping up year after year despite the fact that where things can siphon
out, other chemical can leach in to upset the pool balance. Not just lawn
weedkillers or fertilizers, but natural pollutants from the soil like the
nitrates and phosphates (all like steak and chips to algae). The only
effective way of preventing this is when you are building the pool, the
liner must come up to the level required and dip down six inches into a
shallow trench. In this I was told to lay a concrete sausage, but I would
say myself that it ought to be clean gravel. This will help disrupt any
siphoning action within the soil only because it has to bridge the trench.
Top tips for the Month
If you’ve been dragging out that blanket weed all month and hoiking out
oxygenating weed along with it, it may be as well to replant a batch of it.
Break of some clean pieces from some over grown stems and push them into
baskets in bunches of 5, 25 bunches to a basket and place it on bricks about
a foot below the surface. Once it is obviously growing, lower it to 2ft
(600cm).
You can out those marginal plants if they need replanting. No real hurry but
get it done before the middle of April. Just empty out the baskets, divide
with a knife of spade and replant the portions with healthy growing tips in
a good heavy garden loam. Wait a while for the lilies until they are in full
growth and the heavier the loam the better for them. Top off with pea
shingle. In new ponds they will need a good feed of a slow release pellet
each.
Keep your eyes peeled for any fish diseases, sores, or things hanging off or
on and treat accordingly. Because this is such a huge subject, that’s all I
can say for the moment, things will be revealed as time rolls on.
Really there isn’t a huge amount for the water gardener to do as long as he
or she can spot potential problems before they arise. So basically this just
means a watchful eye over your precious creation.
All the best
Pete
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