|
low maintenance ponding
I thought I would start this up under its own thread. (Galen, you need to post your low maintenance solution to weeding here. DH thinks it has possibilities and fits in well with his flame thrower solution to weeds.) We do pond work once a year. DH rounds up one of the boys, both of them if he can catch them. I supervise :-) Pond is drained. Fish captured and put in the waterfall pool (150 gallon stock tank hidden in behind the waterfall). Dump as much hornwort as we would like on the ground. Lily baskets and pump basket lifted out. Lilies divided, only if needed. Fertilized. Iris island trimmed around the edges. Pump hosed off, pump basket hosed off. 90-ish% of gunk on the floor of the pond shoveled out, distributed to happy trees. Pond refilled, very slowly. Dechlor added. Fish put back in (and any frogs and turtles wandering around). Put back hornwort. Waterfall turned back on. Ignore pond the rest of the year. Winter care - turn off waterfall, add bubbler to keep a hole open in the ice. Go back to ignoring. k :-) |
low maintenance ponding
Low maintenance and no maintenance are different terms for us.
We do very little to maintain the pond...we think. The three berm ponds and three upflow barrels are drained annually and the 3 x 5 bottom of the 'deep well' get netted out once a year (that is where big stuff finally goes. (Total time needed: less than 2 hours). Beyond that, we throw out loads of hyacinth and cerley during growing season. The berm ponds are veggie filters and aleviate the need of any other filter. No filter pads to clean. Everything else is tinkering (except feeding the koi in the main pond). The water level is self-maintaining by a toilet valve. Does that come up low maintenance? Jim |
low maintenance ponding
Mine is low maintenance.
SPRING veggie filter started up: suck out water and junk accumulated in veggie filter over winter. go buy 3-4 nice hanging baskets with flowers. find the bucket filter, rinse, insert pump into this, lower into pond. dig up some water celery growing next to pond, wash off dirt, insert into plastic pot (no dirt) and hang on screws in veggie filter. haul Cyprus out of basement, trim dead tops and roots, insert into pot OR, bend one dead stem over, staple to hold at right level for roots in water. find itty bitty pump and hook up to UV filter DURING SEASON: fertilize the baskets of flowers haul up the bucket filter 3-4 times to clean it, after that the bucket filter isnt needed FALL veggie filter clean up. remove the plants and trash everything except the Cyprus which goes into the basement in a tub under lights. suck the filter clean. put the plastic lean to greenhouse thingy over the top to winterize drop in the heater getting those plants out in fall is not an easy thing. they grow so large they are wedged in and have to be cut out without cutting the liner. I would like to try so rigid PVC with holes in the bottom to see if Cyprus will grow well but I can get them out easily .. next year. I wish I had my whole pond inside a greenhouse so I wouldnt have to remove the plants in fall and start em up again in spring. I miss how it looks in Aug, Sept, Oct. Ingrid On Wed, 4 Jul 2007 00:36:48 CST, Phyllis and Jim wrote: Low maintenance and no maintenance are different terms for us. We do very little to maintain the pond...we think. The three berm ponds and three upflow barrels are drained annually and the 3 x 5 bottom of the 'deep well' get netted out once a year (that is where big stuff finally goes. (Total time needed: less than 2 hours). Beyond that, we throw out loads of hyacinth and cerley during growing season. The berm ponds are veggie filters and aleviate the need of any other filter. No filter pads to clean. Everything else is tinkering (except feeding the koi in the main pond). The water level is self-maintaining by a toilet valve. Does that come up low maintenance? Jim |
low maintenance ponding
Even easier for us, for the *next* pond would be a bottom drain and a skimmer! Also our next pond won't be as deep so we can trim plants with ease. And it will be formal so we don't have to deal with dry stacked rock (easy for dogs to tip in). Will also have one pond for goldfish and one pond for critters. And a long winding stream to float paper boats in... k :-) |
low maintenance ponding
wrote in message . com... I wish I had my whole pond inside a greenhouse so I wouldnt have to remove the plants in fall and start em up again in spring. I miss how it looks in Aug, Sept, Oct. Ingrid ====================== Look into those inexpensive Harbor Freight Greenhouses. They're 10 X 12' and two can be hooked together. They're $700 when on sale several times a year. -- RM.... Frugal ponding since 1995. rec.ponder since late 1996. My Pond & Aquarium Pages: http://tinyurl.com/9do58 Zone 6. Middle TN USA ~~~~ }((((* ~~~ }{{{{(ö |
low maintenance ponding
Our first pond was something like 5000 gallons, earth bottomed, with a
14*3 by one-to-three foot deep swampy-type filter pond. It was low maintenance until my wife decided that we needed to edge it in limestone boulders and the sides all fell in. The next one was much smaller and had a liner. It was low maintenance until we had to fill it in to sell the house.. That was a lot of work. |
low maintenance ponding
On Thu, 5 Jul 2007 12:07:32 CST, rmx256 wrote:
The next one was much smaller and had a liner. It was low maintenance until we had to fill it in to sell the house.. That was a lot of work. That's sad, did the new people not want it? I have some friends selling their house soon with a really nice pond. I think he too is concerned he may have to fill it in, and it was 4 truck loads of dirt out. I sure hope the new people are pond people. So far my sister has sold 2 houses with ponds that the people kept. The last one the people gave her $1,000 so the fish would stay. ~ jan ------------ Zone 7a, SE Washington State Ponds: www.jjspond.us |
low maintenance ponding
On Tue, 3 Jul 2007 22:07:54 CST, k wrote:
I thought I would start this up under its own thread. (Galen, you need to post your low maintenance solution to weeding here. DH thinks it has possibilities and fits in well with his flame thrower solution to weeds.) I do many weird things. Which weirdness would you refer to? -- Galen Hekhuis We'll cross that bridge when it rears its ugly head |
low maintenance ponding
Which weirdness would you refer to?
Target practice with weeds. DH wishes he could get away with that in suburbia. k :-) |
low maintenance ponding
On Fri, 6 Jul 2007 02:06:51 CST, k wrote:
Target practice with weeds. DH wishes he could get away with that in suburbia. It's true, I weed with a rifle. It's an air rifle (CO2 to be exact) with a scope and non-toxic (no lead) pellets. It's great for getting those weeds you can't reach (which is most of them for me). I just sit in my chair, sight in on the base of a weed, and soon the weed topples over. I nail an occasional wasp, but the dragonflies and such are safe, and seem to know it. As a matter of fact, it doesn't seem to bother critters at all, one egret even acts attracted to it, and will fly down to watch (and hunt bugs). The People for the Ethical Treatment of Weeds don't seem to get in my face, either. -- Galen Hekhuis "Mistakes were made" |
low maintenance ponding
In article ,
Galen Hekhuis wrote: On Fri, 6 Jul 2007 02:06:51 CST, k wrote: Target practice with weeds. DH wishes he could get away with that in suburbia. It's true, I weed with a rifle. It's an air rifle (CO2 to be exact) with a scope and non-toxic (no lead) pellets. It's great for getting those weeds you can't reach (which is most of them for me). I just sit in my chair, sight in on the base of a weed, and soon the weed topples over. I nail an occasional wasp, but the dragonflies and such are safe, and seem to know it. As a matter of fact, it doesn't seem to bother critters at all, one egret even acts attracted to it, and will fly down to watch (and hunt bugs). The People for the Ethical Treatment of Weeds don't seem to get in my face, either. -- LOL - there's something very Beverly Hillbillies about that imagery. -- To reply by email, remove the word "space" |
| All times are GMT +1. The time now is 12:42 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
GardenBanter