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Preparing Your Pond for Winter With winter around the corner we need to start preparing our pond for the winter. Now that the days are getting shorter many of the plants in the pond will stop growing and produce less flowers, this is a sign that they are preparing for dormancy. With this in mind we need to stop fertilizing them. After a killing frost we need to clean up any dead leaves and stems of plants that are submerged in the pond so they don’t decompose during the winter robbing your fish of precious oxygen. Potted bog plants can be sunk to the bottom of the pond for winter protection, except for siberian and Japanese iris, which should be wintered in the ground above water level. Smaller pumps need to be removed and stored for the winter. If you have a larger pump in your pond it can be left running in the pond for circulation, the heat produced by the pump is enough to keep it from freezing. If there are fish then this is a good time to put a heater (the kind used for livestock troughs) in your pond, but do not plug it in until the pond is covered with ice. Then only leave it plugged in until a hole has formed in the ice. This is all that is needed for atmospheric gas exchange to take place in the pond. If you don’t have a heater, then float a rubber ball (dark colors work best) in the pond. Ice won’t form on the floating ball except during the worst of winters and will keep a hole in the ice. |
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