Pond Predators
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- CarolWallace
- mica
- VickiPaull
- mica
- CarolWallace
- VickiPaull
- mica
- VickiPaull
- mica
- CarolWallace
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» CarolWallace - Creative recycling
I'll donate some of my husband's old shoes. . .-- posted by CarolWallace
» mica - My teeny-tiny pond
I just started a container pond on my sundeck. I've started a pond before, but just when it was starting to get balanced, a masked bandit came an emptied it of plants, koi and snails... so I gave up.I'm pretty jazzed about this new little pond, and I'm hoping the raccoons won't find it. I know those rascals wouldn't hesitate to come up onto the sundeck if they knew there were goodies up here, but hopefully they won't figure it out.
My cats prefer food that they don't have to work for ;-)
-- posted by mica
» VickiPaull - Bandits!
I started out with a container garden too! I love them because you can water garden about any place with one. I'm giving serious thought to doing one for my deck. Actually my current pond isn't much more than a puddle:-) So far the bandits have only stolen peaches, yes they struck again this year. I knew the peaches were ripe when I found piles of pits at the bottom of the oak trees. I know it's only a matter of time until they hit the pond. My feelings about the little guys may well change when they do!-- posted by VickiPaull
» mica - mixed feelings
I think raccoons are totally cute, but here in the city, once they get used to people food, they are real pests. At my last house the neighbour used to feed them... they'd have pebbles raining down on them from our sundeck, and peanuts from the sundeck next door!I checked out the website you linked to that half-barrel garden guy... I'm hoping my pond-ette will work without the filters and pumps he's suggesting. I'd like to be able to balance it with just plants, fish and scavengers.
-- posted by mica
» CarolWallace - No pump?
We don't have a filter on our small pond - but you have to keep the water circulating somehow or it gets stagnant - even with fish and plants.-- posted by CarolWallace
» VickiPaull - Sticking my neck out. . . .
Ok I will confess--last summer my pump quit working, about mid-July. My pond was even smaller then, about 4' circular. I had lots of water hyacinth, some sagitarius and a lily, as well as, oxegenating plants, five gold fish, assorted snails, and a few fresh water mussels. I was also strapped and just couldn't replace that pump. Oh yeah--the pond was in the shade. All I can say is it worked. No algae, no smell, plants were all healthy and huge! The water was clear and the fish thrived. I know it is not supposed to work that way but it did for me. I'm not recomending that approach, and in fact do have both pump and filters installed in my enlarged pond--but I know it can work.-- posted by VickiPaull
» mica - Well, I guess we'll see!
I have read several articles about small container gardens, and for the most part, they don't suggest a pump. My mom has a small, inground pond that has been going well for 3 years without a pump; the goldfish and snails are very happy.What is stagnant water? I'm guessing it's water without enough oxygen, and with too much decaying matter and algae.
I have oxygenating plants and scavengers, and I'm putting in enough marginals and floaters to (hopefully!!) shade the water and absorb the nutrients that algae need.
I'll let you know how my experiment proceeds.
-- posted by mica
» VickiPaull - Please do!
This could be very interesting. Conventional pond wisdom tells us that a pump and filtration are essential for water gardens/ponds. I have read a few post on news groups that suggest otherwise. My experience indicates it can be done without either, so I am very interested in your results. Keep us posted, please!-- posted by VickiPaull
» mica - A possibility
I wonder whether a micro-pond is easier to balance. The books say to shade 70-80% of the surface with floaters and marginals; it'll be easy to do that in my container with about 3 square feet of surface area, but it would sure take a lot of plants to fill up a larger pond.In my pond-ette I have a pygmy water lily, a 'Black Magic' taro, a unicorn rush (Juncus effusus), an upright pond clover (Marsilea quadrifolia), a creeping jenny, two big oxygenators, a water hyacinth and about 5 immature pond lettuces. That gives me about half the coverage I need, but I wanted to give the plants some room to spread out.
I also put in five very small goldfish, three fat tadpoles to eat algae, and three snails. (I think I need more snails, but they're harder to get this time of year)
The other thing that I do with my little pond is give it some artificial shade during the day until the plants fill in. I just put up my big patio umbrella.
After the first week, the water has darkened somewhat and the rocks have a very light algae coating, but the fish are active and hungry so that's a good sign. I don't feed them much, because they don't recognize the fish food that well yet, and they have been busily eating up all the duckweed that came attached to the plants. They don't seem to care for the fairy moss, though.
-- posted by mica
» CarolWallace - Fascinating!
I read everything I could get my hands on when we set up our first pond - and, as Vicki says, the conventional wisdom was that you MUST have a pump.But if experience shows otherwise - that's great to know! I would love to have a small water feature in the midst of a couple of my beds, but don't want to have to get electical hookups and mess with cords and pumps - so I consider this great news! Keep us posted.
And I can see where you're coming from, too - even our smallest pond took a while to get that needed coverage - we began with a couple of mail order waterlilies in early spring so they took a while to spread. But with a tiny container . . .
(As she runs downstairs looking for a neat basin of some kind. . .)
-- posted by CarolWallace
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