How to Winterize Water Gardens
If you want to keep your water garden healthy year-round, winterizing the garden is important. What you do to winterize your pond in fall makes a difference in how many or how few problems you will have with the garden in spring. Winterizing a pond helps to prevent damage caused by low temperatures and freezing water. The amount of winterizing that will be required depends on the type of plants and fish that you have as well as the size of your water garden. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Remove dead plants and fallen leaves from your pond with a net skimmer before they start to decompose. Fallen leaves and plants that are turning yellow or dying due to the falling temperatures in the pond will use up oxygen that your fish need to survive through the winter if they are left in the pond.
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Remove your pump and plumbing hoses from the water and drain them to prevent them breaking when freezing water expands in them. If your pond has a flexible liner and is deep enough that it will not freeze in the depths, you can store the pump in the pond to keep the seals from drying out. If you store the pump out of the pond, leave it in a bucket filled with water.
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Remove tropical plants such as tropical water lilies and bury the rootstock in a bucket filled with damp sand. Store the bucket in a warm, dark location such as a basement throughout the winter.
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Trim the vegetation away from hardy plants such as hardy water lilies with a pair of garden shears. Store the roots of these plants in the depths of the pond with the pump to overwinter them. If your pond may freeze completely, store these plants in a bucket of wet sand in a cool, dark location such as your garage.
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Remove fish from a pond with a dip net if the pond may freeze completely. Fish will go dormant and survive in a pond that does not freeze completely if you stop feeding them once the average temperature drops below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Drain ponds with rigid liners in areas where the water will freeze completely. You can use a siphon hose to drain the pond. Water expands when it freezes and can damage a rigid liner. Water can be left in a flexible liner.
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Cover the pond with a net or wire mesh such as chicken wire to keep leaves and other debris out of the pond.
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Tips & Warnings
In the South, a pond that is less than 4 feet deep may only have a thin layer of ice over it in winter. In the upper Midwest, a pond that is less than 4 feet deep may freeze completely.
Most water plants can also be stored in a container of water inside your home in a sunny window during the winter.
References
- Photo Credit water lily pond image by Michael Shake from Fotolia.com
