Ok, so I built my bridge last night, it looks really good I got some inspriation from seeing the bridge in place. The walls of my pond are straight up and down so getting lilies in there has always been one of those hurdles I knew I was going to have to face. I've got baskets hanging from ropes which almost the most painful thing I've had to deal with in this whole project. It's just a mediocre system, it's not ideal. So I realized I can susped plant baskets from a rigid post under the bridge. The bridge is 8' long and covers a 6' wide channel of the pond so I figure I can mount 1 basket on each edge of the bridge, one on the left one on the right. The sun will definitly hit the plant on one side of the bridge, but I'm worried the far side's plant will not get any direct sunlight. Is this going to stifle that lily or will there be enough radiant light that it will grow and eventually put some pads out into the water where it can get direct sunlight?
Bridge and shade...
- Thread starter buckry
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sissy
sissy
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Lilies do need light to bloom and i found grasses like colleen said are great water cleaners and i now have several in my pond and also in the top of my filters in plant bags .Cold hardy palms around the outside of the pond make it look tropical and since they don't have aggressive roots they will not harm or shift the liner .
sissy
sissy
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You have to trim the roots from time to time but they don't care about light conditions .Lilies need lots of sun to bloom and less light will give you less leaves on them also .i have to move one of mine .
sissy
sissy
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I got these a couple of weeks ago 2 dollars a piece .I got this striped white and green one in a large pot end of season last year for 50 cents and now have 8 plants.I over wintered these and the fairy moss I got for 2 dollars and it is spreading .I have to keep my plants in stock tanks koi destroy floating plants and really most plants.They also sucked some of my trapdoor snails out of there shells
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Ok, got some sweetgrass and something else with a name I can't pronounce on order. Also found these AMAZING kidney bean shaped planter boxes. These will fill up almost the entire space under the bridge so I'll have tons more room for plants than I figured. That means my bridge will be fully lined with plants. Sounds absolutely perfect to me.
sissy
sissy
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Will make it blend in more .I used planter bags and ran thinner conduit pipe next to my bridge and used that to tie my plant bags to .I used heavy fishing line tripled up to tie the plants to the pipe .Only way to save the plants from the fish .I built a planter ring but koi would just knock it over by jumping at the edges of it .Forgot I packed the pipe with cement to make it stiffer
I'm going to get something rigid, not sure what, something plastic and black, but I'm going to screw that to the bridge, then drill holes in the lower part and use zip ties to hold my basket to it. I think that will be really solid, although I hope not too solid, I don't want heron to stand on it. I might make it hinged so weight will force it under the bridge.