Water Hyacinth Greenhouse

[Shoestring Ponder]

Last season, I removed my WH that were blooming and put them in a kiddy pool that also had pond water in it...it was the place our Gray Tree Frogs laid eggs. At any rate, I had read that the seeds of the WH formed and were dropped a few days (I believe) after the bloom bends down after its' blooming was over. I thought this way, it would release the seeds in the smaller kiddy pond and thererfore, I might be able to have some plants grow this season. Once the spent bloom got yucky, I removed it and left it in the kiddy pond and then put the WH back into the regular pond.

I had also read the seeds need a draught period, and since the kiddy pool developed a crack in it at the end of the season and it held very little water, I thought that might mimic a draught. Well, nothing came up or grew in the muck left in the kiddy pool but a few Silver Maple seedlings from those (e-mail address removed)# spinners! My experiment did not work. I do have some Duck Weed growing there and occasionally I remove some and place in the pond for the fish,unfortunately, not enough is growing to allow for it to reproduce in the pond before the fish eat it. Oh well, back to the drawing board! :goldfish:

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Don't give up on those seeds yet Shoestring, give them another 29 years.

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Well it didn't take long, just short of a month and I reached full capacity of the little greenhouse incubator for growing water hyacinth.
I don't want to let them crowd in there, so from this point on I'll just be removing excess growth and placing them in the pond. Right now the water in the pond is too cool for good growth, but I'll still be growing them in the incubator, so by the time the weather round here gets warm enough I should have more than I really need. It's my first year with this new pond and most of my other pond plants aren't really established, so these extra hyacinth will be a welcome addition to fill in.

 

[j.w]

Hey Mucky, meet me at the Peace Arch Park and lets do a plant deal when you get too many of those W.H plants.............lol, just fooling ya................we'd get busted big time prolly! They really are growing nice for ya!

 

[addy1]

utoh mucky and jw sharing a jail cell together! over wh plants

 

[Waterbug]

This has turned out even better than I would have guessed. I had been thinking of building a greenhouse but maybe this would be a better way to go, smaller green houses.

 

[j.w]

Yep waterbug and you can still be your cheap old self while doing it,

 

[Waterbug]

I prefer monetarily flexible.

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Figured I'd update this thread with a picture of my pond with all the water hyacinth I have in there now. There are a bunch at the other end of the pond too.


https://www.gardenpondforum.com/gallery/image/2020-water-hyacinth-in-pond/


The greenhouse is still full of hyacinth, in fact I recently added a short variety of water hyacinth and some other small tropical floater I can't remember the name of.
It's actually still been too cold in my pond for good growth, and the hyacinth aren't really doing very well, but there are still alive and provide all kinds of shoreline cover for my small turtles, frogs and small fish.
I have even given some of the water hyacinth away to friends, and thrown some of the worst looking ones in the compost bin.
The friend I gave the water hyacinth to had a very small, overstocked pond, and in return gave me 4 of their goldfish, one that looks like she is neary 1 lb in size. I think I got the best end of that deal. LOL And I'll bet the fish are happy too.

 

[addy1]

Great job, makes it nice when something works out. Where is a pict of your new goldfish?

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Where is a pict of your new goldfish?

Here you go Addy, I was fooling around with my underwater video camera yesterday. Video is better than pictures anyway. lol

 

[Shoestring Ponder]

AMAZING!!!! Can I be a fish in your pond? What a wonderful set up you have!! :bowdown: You surely have a most impressive pond for all your finned and legged friends! What are the little fish I saw swimming? Just loved the turtle and the frog as well! :heartpump: The new GF is possibly preggers? Or is that just the nature of that type of GF? I believe I have common ones, although I love them all! Thank You for sharing your beautiful, amazing pond with us!

:goldfish:

 

[koiguy1969]

nice video....i need a real underwater camera...what a clarity / quality difference... nice yard as well. looks like something you'd see in New Mexico or other desert state.

 

[j.w]

Really a fun video to watch Mucky.........I was mesmerized! What a pretty clear pond. How do you keep it looking so nice w/ all the rocks on the bottom? Does the little turtle survive out there all winter or do you have to bring him indoors?

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Shoestring: I’m not sure what those little fish are, I netted them out of a local pond. I hope they are some kind of minnow and stay small.
As for the fish being pregnant, it could be, I’m no expert on those things. All I know is they get chasing each other around the pond like there’s no tomorrow, so there is something going on there.

Koiguy; the camera I was using was the GoPro 3D camera. I only used the video from one of the cameras for this video, but I do have the 3D footage and it’s really neat to watch on the big screen TV. If you have your computer connected to a 3D TV I can upload a 3D version?

JW; the rocks are actually on shelves in the pond, the deep part of the pond has a bottom drain and no rocks, and so far has stayed relatively clear (as intended). I’m sure I’ll get a certain amount of muck between the rocks, but I deliberately tried to just use large rock so I could run the hose between them and flush the debris out and towards the bottom drain. This is my first year with this pond, so I guess I’ll find out how well it works.
And yes, those are cold hardy turtles (there are 4 in there, the one in the video was one of the big ones), they should survive the winter in that pond, if I can keep them healthy.
Thanks for watching