Pond update
Here’s a gallery of pictures of my wildlife garden pond since April when I put the plants in. Read my previous post to find out more about planting my pondAMP.
In May you can see that the pond plants haven’t had much time to settle in, and were also inexplicably suffering pest damage (see the pic of Kingcup leaves)! However, the surrounding vegetation is growing nicely, with Geraniums and Campanula recovering well. That’s a Peony bud muscling in from bottom left of the image. There’s no sign of Forget-me-not seedlings unfortunately – if you remember I sowed some seed to cover any bare earth, especially on the left hand side. The pond water has a greenish tinge.
It’s common for ponds to take a few weeks to settle. However, I think there might have been an inrush of nutrients when I added the pre-potted plants. In retrospect I should have bought bare-root plants and potted them up myself in low nutrient specialist aquatic compost.
To try and combat the green water I brought home some barley straw from workAMP (we don’t actually sell the straw but sometimes we have offcuts from dried flower projects). Barley is said to discourage the growth of algae by releasing retardant chemicals into the pond as it decomposes. It didn’t have a noticeable effect, possibly because it works best as a deterrent and doesn’t cure existing blooms.
In June, the pond and its contents still weren’t looking very attractive! The surroundings were pretty though, with some self-seeded white Herb Robert, Geranium robertianum ‘Celtic White’ around the bottom left hand corner.
In August the Kingcup Caltha palustris was looking very happy and was actually in flower! The other water plants, although not exactly lush yet, were holding their ground.
By September the one or two fronds of Common Duckweed Lemna minor had become a mat. I saw this as a good thing because it meant that all the excess nutrients in the water were being turned into green leaves which I could then simply scoop out onto the side of the pond.
In October I spotted a Common Frog Rana temporaria in amongst the weed – see image at top of page! I wasn’t confident of the species at first but apparently the smooth pointy face of a frog distinguishes it from the rounded warty face of a toad. The dark band around the eyes is also diagnostic.
It’s now December and I’ve continued to scoop out the Duckweed from time to time. When I looked yesterday the water was looking much clearer and I’m hopeful for the spring. I may even have to be careful to avoid scooping out any frogspawn!