Articles

Putting in a preformed liner often seems the easy option when contemplating building a water garden, but things dont are not that simple when it actually comes down to it, especially if the pool liner is a big one. Getting it precisely level can be almost a lottery and then trying to make it look natural and in keeping with the rest of the garden can then seem a hopeless task. Here we show how you can get a level and attractive feature that would be on a par with a pond created in any other way.

It has to be admitted that even a skillfull professionally installed water feature using fibreglass products is probably more suited to the urban or suburban garden, but there are distinct advantages when it comes to maintenance and keeping it clean. Fibreglass as opposed to a plastic ponds can be manufactured much larger and deeper and are therefore slightly more suitable for providing a home larger species of fish like koi, as long as the numbers are kept to a very few.

There cannot be another group of plants that need less help from you during the growing season, but when it comes to the colder months, some of them will need your tender loving care, whilstA barrow full of duckweed, for the second time that year - and look at the size of the pond! others will vanish as if by magic only to return again, just as mysteriously.
I don’t know why they have this appeal to me, but some of my favourite water plants are floaters. They float carefree, drifting around on the surface of the pool with no attachments to terra firma, their roots hang below them taking their nutrition directly from the water. Many of them are gross feeders and use up excess nutrients in the water; the same nutrients that algae would otherwise take advantage of. In this way they help to inhibit the algal proliferation, but also by shading the lower realms of the pool, they cut down the sunlight that algae also need for their growth.
This has a downside, which results in some species of floating plants receiving exceedingly bad press. Many of us know from bitter personal experience that if you are a ‘gross feeder’ then you grow. In the world of floating plants this also means propagation, proliferation and multiplication. Take the tiny Duckweeds, or LEMNA. There are 12 species, of which four are British, which between them seem to be able to cover any surface of unfrozen water in any part of the globe. Once you have one of them, you have got it for life, unless you keep ducks, which will gorge on it to oblivion. Some fish will love it too, making a highly nutritious supplement to their diet. Lemna minor is the most common, with small ovate fronds or leaves, light green above and deep green underneath with one rootlet per frond.
Lemna trisulca (Ivy-leaved Duckweed) is perhaps the prettiest, hiding itself submerged until the height of summer when it comes up to display light green, transparent fronds. The fronds divide with the new ones grow at right angles giving the ‘Ivy-leaf’ effect.

Garden lighting can make your garden useable as an outdoor room for more days of the year. It will create a new dimension to your lifestyle for social occasions and romantic tête-à-têtes. Also, added-security comes as a bonus without the use of the ubiquitous retina blistering megawatt halogens that create the ‘Colditz effect’ around so many homes these days.
The Americans have long since thought we are crazy. Good quality garden lighting has been around for years and here we are supposedly a nation of gardeners and what do we do but draw the blinds on our creations for six months of the year? The garden must be designed to be seen from the house and if it cannot be seen on a late autumnal night then light it up. Water gardens in particular seem to come to life even in the darkest months with lighting around, floating and underwater.

What to do in the water garden in November.

In the UK, normally the season of mellow fruitfulness is over and the feeling and look of a grey blanket settles over everything. This year in some parts of the country things seem to be hanging on at the beginning ofThe water hawthorn - Aponogeton distachyos begins to flower in November. the month. Leaves are still green on some trees, although the Ash have long since called it a day and dropped all their leaves, the Beech are performing a spectacular firey display or oranges and yelows. If it had been a hot summer and a rapid temperature change in the autumn this would have produced a spectacular autumn display of colour in the maples. But they have been a bit undecided as to what to do - some producing clourful leaves but losing them quickly. But despite the stuttering onset of winter, there is no doubt that it will come eventually.

In the pond, some plants hang on resolutely until there is ice to thwart them. Plants like the Ludwigia and some of the Carex look fresh and green. But even if the weather does seem mild for the time of year, prepare for the cold snap. With the on-coming cold the pools, ponds and water gardens will go to sleep. So if the water has cooled below 7°C, don’t feed your fish, especially the Koi, and between 7 and 10°C only feed your Koi either wheat-germ or some other top quality winter feed.
Many people who have tall grassy plants around the pool and who haven’t cut them back are congratulating themselves because there is still cover for the wildlife that is still moving in and out of the pool, unable to settle down, but also it looks very good. In a dryish year the likes of Cyperus longus, Sweet Galingale and the indigenous species of Carex or sedges produce quite autumnal blaze. Meanwhile the scented rush, Acorus calamus and its tufty variegated cousin Acorus gramineus stay evergreen.

It is around about the end of July that it begins to become apparent that although the pond is perfectly healthy, everything in it has simply become overgrown. So perhaps it isAn investigative dredging with a net reveals more rubbish than was envisaged. Time for a cleanout. not just a haircut required at the end of the season, but a thorough sort out is in order too.

Early October is the best time to do it before the frogs decide to call it the end of the season. Also it is an opportune time to check out that persistent drop in water level which you are sure is attributable a small hole somewhere. However if there is an obvious desperate need earlier in the year then ‘needs must prevail’.
If there are telltale bubbles of gas that emerge from the stygian depths of a gloomy pool with a mere casual nudge with a stick or net into the bottom mud, this spells emergency! And something must be done at once to avert disaster.