Pond Cleanup Continues

I've already cleaned the pond a couple of times in preparation for the spring warm-up, but there's still much to do. I tackled more of it last weekend before the snowstorm.

As you can see the water has cleared up a bit since the recent rains washed mud into the pond, but muddy water is going to be a problem until I do some filtering -- especially if I keep stirring things up.

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The fish are easy to spot these days, and it does appear that I've lost one -- unless it's just incredible shy and is hiding in the submerged plants.

You can see my potted waterlily in the lower left corner of that image -- it's starting to wake up already! Time to pull it out and repot it I guess.

I'll be focusing on the canna and papyrus today:

I decided to just leave the pots in place to see how the plants do over the winter. I know that submerging non-hardy water plants in the deepest parts of the pond is a viable overwintering strategy, but I wanted to see how these would fare if just left in place at the water's surface (or just below).

There are still plenty of leaves and too much of the submerged oxygenators left in the water:

But I'll tackle those later. First, some pruning:

I was hoping that the stems would all be firm and crunchy when I put the pruners to them -- and they were! The parts above the waterline were mushy, but it seems that the rhizomes and root systems are all still viable!

The real proof will come if and when new growth appears. If none of these grow there's no harm done, as I have several of each overwintering in the garage. It would just be nice if they survive so I can reclaim more garage space in future winters.

The papyrus stems were quite attractive when cut:

With the pruning done I spent some time pulling leaves and plants out of the water. This really stirred up the silt and muddied the waters again:

I've got an idea of how to remove some of the soil particles and get my clear water back again, but I'll probably wait until the lawn starts growing so this won't just happen again the next time it rains.

I can't wait for some plants to start growing!


(BTW, there's a submerged pot of soil at the bottom of the pond, probably on its side. The raccoons did that for me last summer, and I haven't been able to get it out yet. It's deeper than my arm can reach. Any suggestions on how to get it out? It's not visible.)

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