Bursts of red, gold, and orange in the trees signify an important event for pond owners… It’s time to do a little fall maintenance in your water garden! Preparing your pond for the colder fall and winter months greatly reduces the amount of work you need to do in the spring to get your pond in tip-top shape.
When the colorful leaves are still clinging to the tree’s branches, it’s a great time to determine your strategy for keeping that beautiful foliage out of your pond. Sure, the foliage looks pretty floating on your pond’s surface, but eventually they’ll sink to the bottom where they’ll decay and wreak havoc on your water quality. As leaf matter decomposes, it compromises the balance of your water, which can become toxic for your fish. Leaves can also begin to release tannins into your pond, which will cause discoloration similar to tea.
Netting your pond is an easy, obvious choice for addressing leaf control. It doesn’t take much time to set the net up over your water garden, and the hours of future work it saves you is well worth the time investment. You can pick up pond netting in our retail store at Garden State Koi Pond & Waterfall Design Center, or contact us to have us come to YOU and install it!
Be sure you are securely netting the pond by using strong stakes around the perimeter (TIP: netting should be taut enough that you can bounce a quarter on it). Our team of experts recommend a PVC skeleton domed over your pond to prevent leaves from sitting in your water, getting heavy, and decaying. Rebar is a great tool to use as a strong stake to hold your PVC in place, but make sure your PVC is at least 1 inch to support the weight.
If you choose not to net your pond, you’ll need to make sure that you’re checking the pond’s skimmer basket every couple of days to remove the pile-up of leaves and debris. Once you pull the leaves out of the basket, be sure to toss them in your compost pile.
If you failed to net your pond and all those colorful, floating leaves have found their way to the pond’s bottom, you’ll want to remove them before they decay into ugly sludge that has to be cleaned out in the spring. Grab a long-handled pond net and scoop the debris from the floor of your water garden. Or, if you don’t mind getting your feet wet, wade into the pond and fish them out by hand. Ensure most-or-all of the leaves are removed.
Whatever your strategy to combat the onslaught of beautiful fall foliage that floats into your pond, you can rest assured that your efforts to control it now will be well rewarded come springtime.