Winterizing a Pond!
It happens every year!
The days are getting colder. The leaves are turning and slowly begin to drop down to the ground. This is the perfect time to begin winterizing a pond.
As you see on pictures, our pond is situated near the trees that normally drop huge amount of leaves, especially when the weather really gets bad.
If I don’t start winterizing a pond early enough, the leaves will fill the pond, settle to the bottom, clog the skimmer and, may cause all kinds of problems.
The easy way to keep falling leaves and other debris out of the pond is cover it with pond netting.
For our pond I get 17’x 25’ plastic netting with a 0.5 mesh size. This is enough to completely cover the pond. The other piece, 17’x 6’ is for the waterfall.
But before I cover the pond, I take care of plants!
(Tip: Hardiness zone progress from the coldest to the warmest. Therefore, Zone 3 is colder than Zone 5.
Another word, any plant that has a hardiness zone with a higher number than your area, the plant will need some sort of winter protection, perhaps, moving to the basement or a garage.
Plants with hardiness zone of 9 or 10 can best be maintained as houseplants in the winter.)
We live in Zone 7a, so any plant with a hardiness of Zone 7a or less will survive the winter without being moved to deeper part of the pond.
First winter arrived and I was going to follow these instructions, but my wife suggested instead just cut the plant stems and leave the plant pots in the water where they were. I took that chance only to find out in the spring that every plant was alive and well.
Now I do the same thing every year.
My mentor has written the winter care article, which I want to share with you. It will let you to see how professional growers handle the winter.
Now, the plants are taken care of and I can cover the pond.Using large metal stakes, I stretched the netting across the pond, but the next day I couldn’t find the netting because it sunk under the weight of falling leaves.
Thanks to my “creative mind”, I ran quickly to local toy store and purchased large plastic balls. Floating on the surface of the pond, these balls should keep netting from sinking and they do!
I do not shut the water flow for the winter. This keeps waterfall and the pond from freezing and delivers oxygen for the fish. Because of this, I still do occasional maintenance, primarily on the skimmer and the pump.
Depending on your area and the size of your pond, you may need to install pond heater and deicer to keep the pond water from freezing, otherwise, this is just about what you need for a winter pond.
Build healthy environment in your pond and you’ll never have to worry about fish surviving a winter. I promise you it will!
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