Spring is springing for the water gardener
Hello, its 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, Ive 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. Ill 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 7C (45F). Then between 7C and 10C(50F) only feed low protein food or wheat germ. It is only above 10C 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 months 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 doesnt 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, thats 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