Cold weather and pond plants zone 5

[Xtopher3]

my apologies if this has been covered in other threads...new pond and first winter...

At what point do you start taking plants like water lettuce and hyacinth out of ponds?

When do you cut back pond and bog plants? Everything still seems super green, but nights are starting to get cool...

And when netting for leaves, do you need to support the net so the leaves don't weigh it down and end up in the water?

Thanks in advance

 

[addy1]

I don't net for leaves.

The floating plants yank when they start to die back.

The pond and bog plants get cut back when they die. Just about the time I turn my system off, usually October / November, depends on if we get a cold winter or not.

 

[BKHpondcritters]

I wait for a frost or freeze to kill things & then remove (floaters) or cut back. I do pull my butterfly ginger out right before first frost & bring it inside for winter, since it's not reliably hardy in my zone.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

I cut back plants when I put my leaf net on. For me, that's whenever I notice a lot of leaves starting to fall along my driveway. Sometime next month. I wait as late as possible. My net is not supported. I don't have any trees directly over my pond, so I don't have any issues with leaves resting directly on the net. They just build up around the sides. The snow weighs it down, though. I try to get the net off before the snowy season, but that never works out.

 

[EricV]

I pull out the hyacinth and so forth when they are noticeably dying. And trim back anything going brown.

For my net, I hold it a couple of feet off the sides of the pond with garden flag holders. And I put a support in the middle of the pond for winter made of PVC to keep the net out of the water. Once winter has past, I remove the support but keep a net on until most of the surface is covered by plant growth.

 

[TheFishGuy]

I wait for a frost or freeze to kill things & then remove (floaters) or cut back. I do pull my butterfly ginger out right before first frost & bring it inside for winter, since it's not reliably hardy in my zone.

I didnt have a choice to cut back stuff before the first frost/snow.

I know, its not much but still....... september!

 

[BKHpondcritters]

Yikes! Where do you live? This is why I'm in NC - September is WAY too early for snow. or frosts. or freezing of anything.

 

[TheFishGuy]

Yikes! Where do you live? This is why I'm in NC - September is WAY too early for snow. or frosts. or freezing of anything.

Colorado, it was just 97 on Saturday too, and then Sunday this was what all flat surfaces looked like: ( the fires got really really bad and pretty close to us )

yup thats burnt pine needles and tree bark, whole pieces just dropping down on us. Colorado is just so messed up right now.

the sun and stillhousts of trees ( this is at noon, night mode and 50% darkness, thats what the light was.

 

[poconojoe]

For the leaves, I use a nylon pond net. Pretty much the same net you would use on your fruit trees to protect the fruit from birds.

I have a frame made of pvc pipe that I dismantle when not in use. I hammer those fiberglass driveway marker sticks into the ground and slip the PVC pipe over them. I do that to create an upward bow in the pvc pipe. I have 3 of those bows spanning the width of the pond. I have a long pvc spanning the length, down the middle of the pond. At each intersecting point I have a PVC 4 way connector to hold things together. The net is draped over the frame and ty- wrapped to the pvc. I had used 1/2" pvc in the past, but it was too flexible. I'm going to change it to 1" this year.

 

[poconojoe]

I found a picture of my net setup...

 

[Phaewryn]

It's my understanding that water lettuce needs 70 degrees or higher temps to thrive, and will die at 59 or less, so once it gets below 60 degrees at night, I would think you'd want to bring that in. I would think that if you wait until it begins to turn white and die, it might be too late to save it by overwintering it indoors. It's why I didn't even try to grow it in my pond, needs much warmer water than I have at night in zone 5a. I didn't want to have to run a heater all summer just so my overnight water temps supported lettuce. I'd bring it in now. I don't use a cover net for leaves, I just go out and scoop them daily in the fall, then I cover the pond with a rigid cover before the water temps get low enough to start freezing over, but after most of the leaves are down.

 

[Lisak1]

Just an FYI - the floating plants like water lettuce and hyacinth are affected by colder AIR temps. They won't survive long enough for your water temperature to drop below 60 degrees when the air temperature starts to drop off.

 

[Xtopher3]

So we have consistently been below 10 degrees Celsius at night for a while...just pulled the last of the hyacinth, but the water lettuce seems to be fine...

Another pleasant surprise is the water cress, which has crept into a shallow area of the pond and taken over...looks super healthy and happy...

I think I'm gonna ride both until the bitter end...

So sad to see birds trying to get in to have a drink or a bath but the net obviously stops them

Can't wait to be done with the leaves dropping so I can take this net off...

 

[poconojoe]

Yeah, two days ago I cut down all my plants, removed a truck load of water lettuce and water hyacinths, gave the bottom a scooping and put up my net. Today there were tons of leaves all over the net!

It's amazing how many water lettuce I had. My pond was completely covered with the exception of where the two air stones were.
Take a look...

I'll have to take a picture tomorrow of everything trimmed down and the net with it's framing.

Bummer...this means winter is near!

 

[Mayank]

So we have consistently been below 10 degrees Celsius at night for a while...just pulled the last of the hyacinth, but the water lettuce seems to be fine...

Another pleasant surprise is the water cress, which has crept into a shallow area of the pond and taken over...looks super healthy and happy...

I think I'm gonna ride both until the bitter end...

So sad to see birds trying to get in to have a drink or a bath but the net obviously stops them

Can't wait to be done with the leaves dropping so I can take this net off...

Our water lettuce and some other annuals are still all looking ok (we've already had a few below 32F nights).
[Few weeks ago I removed a ton of it because it was "choking" my pond. Thats when we saw that our fish had babies!!!! There's at least five surviving and are between 2-3 inches in length.]
The pond place told me that the pennywort was an annual but most sites say its zone 5-11; anyway it is still looking lush! Water temp around 48-50 F.
The lotuses and water lily look pretty much done and are yellow/brown. Still feeding the fish but every three days and not as much and this weekend I will be moving the aerator to the middle level (18 in) from the deep (42 in) level and starting to wind things down.
I have a big net (came with frame and everything) that goes over the pond. I'll take an image and post later.