What does your pond look like ... Today?

[JBtheExplorer]

Woke up well before sunrise today thanks to my duck alarm. They stayed in the area for a few hours and were back in the pond just a little while ago.

I also liked the way the sun and clouds looked, so I snapped a photo of that while I was out.

 

[addy1]

Crystal clear, poor lilies did not like me mucking with them. Broke a few leaves off, but they will recover fast. Darn herons are flying over constantly, saw three this am, right over my pond, net has to stay forever lol. 25 this am pond is 50

 

[addy1]

Forgot fishy pictures. I was just shooting through the net so they would not go hide, still a little winter nervous

 

[myswtsins]

Love all these ducks you guys get! Only slightly jealous. Are those all lily pots addy? How many do you have?

 

[addy1]

Love all these ducks you guys get! Only slightly jealous. Are those all lily pots addy? How many do you have?

We have ducks stop in the yard, but due to mr heron they can't enjoy the pond.

I have around 15, in the big pond, 5, I think, in the 1000 gallon pond. They are all shallow right now for more sun hit, as the season progresses, some of them end up 3-4 feet deep. I groomed them over the last few days, since then some of them have 8 inch leaf shoots heading for the surface. They must like the new litter and osmocote.

There are 4 in the small fishless ponds, one in the deck pond. One of the fishless ponds they fight for survival, a lot of plants, a run away small lotus, algae, tads, etc. It is a critter pond/plant filter for the big pond.

 

[myswtsins]

Nice, makes me feel better about adding more lilies to my pond. Still don't understand how all your stuff is growing so fast so early and you just moved you lilies up. Mine have been up by the surface for 3 weeks now and pond has been above 50 since then too (over 60 some days) and still no growth. Tomorrow I will get in there and split and repot them with kitty litter and osmocote. I got a couple 9 gal pots to try (use the dollar store oil pans now), let's see how unwieldy they turn out!

Since we are talking about it, I have a lot of very small leaves that never grew from last fall that look alive and healthy but should I remove them when I repot? They are just a couple inches, some still curled, just coming off the the tuber type of leafs to be clear.

 

[addy1]

I don't remove any leaves, the only ones that get removed is due to me breaking them off accidentally.
That is the growing tip, let it be. Mine that are now 6-8 inches up were just tiny leaves when I repotted them.
I use walmart oil pans for all of my lilies. They like shallow and the pans are so easy to move with your foot to bring to where you need to groom them. They, in a few years, do replace all of the litter with roots, then they start to float to the surface unless you have a rock on them. That is a good indicator, time to groom.

One bag of tractor supply kitty litter (25lb) does around 3 lilies, depends on how much litter is left in the pan, usually none.

I pull off the dead roots, break off dead tubers, remove excess tubers, stick back in the litter toss in the pond, done. Sometimes I use a serrate knife to cut them apart they get so root bound.

 

[peter hillman]

Forgot fishy pictures. I was just shooting through the net so they would not go hide, still a little winter nervousView attachment 90059 View attachment 90060 View attachment 90061 View attachment 90062 View attachment 90063 View attachment 90064

Well no wonder you have herons flying over all day.

 

[addy1]

Well no wonder you have herons flying over all day.

There is a rookery to the west of us, their feeding grounds appear to be the east of us. We are in their direct flight path. Before I finally netted the pond, they came every day and stalked the ponds looking for food. The floating alligator heads worked for a while, but with all my lilies they quit moving, mr heron learned they were safe. I tried fishing line, they went through it, fencing hopped over it.

The net is easy to lift up so I can work on the lilies, get in the pond, also it does not trap frogs, small birds, dragon flies, etc.

The net is all that has finally stopped them from coming. It is a large weave fishing gill net (4-5 inch), hung 3 feet or so over the pond. The heron can not strike through it. We watch them fly over, quite often tree level over our ponds, they pause look down, keep going.

 

[Faebinder]

There is a rookery to the west of us, their feeding grounds appear to be the east of us. We are in their direct flight path. Before I finally netted the pond, they came every day and stalked the ponds looking for food. The floating alligator heads worked for a while, but with all my lilies they quit moving, mr heron learned they were safe. I tried fishing line, they went through it, fencing hopped over it.

The net is easy to lift up so I can work on the lilies, get in the pond, also it does not trap frogs, small birds, dragon flies, etc.

The net is all that has finally stopped them from coming. It is a large weave fishing gill net (4-5 inch), hung 3 feet or so over the pond. The heron can not strike through it. We watch them fly over, quite often tree level over our ponds, they pause look down, keep going.

The biggest issue i have with my net is the plants and cleaning the pond (etting out debris). It's a pain to keep hammering the stakes and removing them.

Any thoughts on how to fix this?

 

[addy1]

The biggest issue i have with my net is the plants and cleaning the pond (etting out debris). It's a pain to keep hammering the stakes and removing them.

Any thoughts on how to fix this?

My net is on fence stakes. The white wiggly line is fishing line to weave two parts of the net together, they have wider nets now. The rope to the right gives the net form, that allows you to drape it over fence stakes, pull it tight, remove it, adjust height. I can net the pond, bottom and surface without removing the net. It does not look like it, but it is 2-3 feet above the water surface. with a slight drape down. @j.w has a real nice thread about her net install. Maybe she will post a link to it here.

When I wade in to work the lilies I lift it off one corner post drape it over the other corner post and wade in.

 

[Jeff Kraemer]

Great pictures everyone! Love looking at all of your beautiful photos.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

Blue Flag Irises continue to shoot up in the bog.

 

[peter hillman]

Had to clean the filter pad, look at the difference! Before

And after!

what was in there

And pulled out the leaves from last year found
a really small fingerling.

There were a lot of worms and other things in the pile, a good hand washing afterwards..

 

[sissy]

I thought of doing a crochet pond net out of fishing line .