Garden Ponds - Cleaning Garden Fish Pond

This day seems to be perfect for that job.

We knew it will come, but we were trying to postpone it as much as possible.

Cherry trees of all kind are blossoming in the garden, bees are busy...

The barrel got ready...

Some stones got special exposition and spa (water) treatment...

Spring in full swing...

Husband meditating over the pond: from which corner to start?

Reccomended further reading The Water Gardener's Bible: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building, Planting, Stocking, and Maintaining a Backyard Water Garden

While some of us are just sniffing plants....

... we are removing water from the pond. Now you can see it fully naked to the bottom: all plants and dirt and mess...
Main purpose of this activity was to get rid of grass carps (yes, yes, they become a cat food), but also general cleaning, which means a total disaster to all living there guys...

... like these two frogs, having a silent house here (how they save themselves from cats I have no idea).

In order to rescue them from lack of water we caught them and placed carefully in the barrel filled with water, where we placed also filter for adding oxygen to water. I expect to move about 100 fish there, so it will be very crowded.

Big and small frog were cheering up each other, horrified probably...

but the small frog as every youth, was very unpatient and didn't want to sit inside...

It was sitting here in one moment...

... and few minutes later, I spotted it back in the pond. I took it carefully back to the barrel... and in few minutes... it was BACK in the pond. Insisting creature. OK then. We didn't pay attention to it anymore.

This is a disgusting guy, right? I also thought so until I have learned that it is a dragonfly larvae. And it is living in my pond! Isn't it a miracle? You take some construction materials, build a pond, fill it with water, add some plants and fish and life appears. Frogs, dragonflies and some other scary creatures that I don't know what they are...


Water gets less and less... we clean the foil... the rest of the water gets more and more muddy...

While washing the foil, we had a chance to make close examination of its every inch. This hole is a bad surprise. It must be there since last year, when the human youth was having a big party.

That hole is not big maybe 1,5 cm - water was dripping through it so slow that we couldn't notice.

Foil is easy to fix - just same foil patch and proper glue (shoes glue :)) and here we go... This is our second patch in 3 years, so we already have some experience.

My readers probably still wonder about the headline of the post... Just take closer look at my husband t-shirt: Alcatraz Triathlon Digg Dash Dive...

If you think that we started to work at 11.00 am and ended same day at 9 pm and being not able to finish the work... We didn't have such dirty job... playing in mud...

Muddy Waters, ehe...
Totally work was finished on the 3rd day.

Huzz was catching fish bare hands... can you see a white shade at the tip of his palm? That is fish. Guess who was the last one to catch? Little froggie of course...

I was catching them in different way...

Time passed very fast - you can see how fast huzz was working as the day was coming to an end. We hoped to finish the work same day - that was too optimistic...

All fish was caught and placed in the barrel. This way we know that there is 163 fish - and 156 is born here. About 20 went to my friend's pond. Soon we have to give away more of them... cos they grow naturally and golden measure in this case is 1 kg of fish per 1 m3 to maintain the balance.

The reward for this 3 days job is clean water - I wonder for how long...

All creatures living outside of the pond are happy to see again fish pottering around... Me and Huzz are mesmerized and staring at it for hours, cats as well. Didn't see frogs yet...

That bare foil looks little disgusting to me. I can't wait when life will be back in the water. I hope that now plants will grow properly and natural balance will be reached at the end of this season.

Recommended further reading The Water Gardener's Bible: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building, Planting, Stocking, and Maintaining a Backyard Water Garden

pH report, grass combing, InStyle and authentic garden in Warsaw

After applying ammonium sulfate 3 days later pH dropped from 7 to 5,5 pH, so it seems my rhodos will feel better. They already look better - it is surprising after such short time - it's leaves are up, like dog's ears :) looks really cheering up.

There is so many things going on in the garden, cos it is last month, to make some more serious arrangement, then either it gets too warm and you have to water transplanted plants more often, or theitr natural growth process is disturbed. I am trying to finish all the jobs in March, but they usually extend to April.

One of the urgent jobs was 'combing' the lawn - cos it looked pretty weird - different shades of green, different growing speeds of grass. Here in "Ewa in the Garden" we are trying to shrink size of lawns, but still we home some. This piece is visible from the window, so I would like it to look nice. "Combing" was made with machine looking like lawnmower, but cutting the crawded sod, and make more space for grass to grow.

Total effect is interesting. Lawn is less green, but flattened and more even in color. Now I consider to give some fertiliser, but that brings vicious circle. The more fertiliser you give, the more often you have to mow it.

Some fertiliser would help it to equall the shades of green, right?

In the afternoon I had a meeting in Warsaw, and look what I have spotted in front of the restaurant. This magnolia looks very lovely in the pot, but I felt so sorry for it... such a wrong place for it. It will not be happy there... just a short lived eye candy for customers...

Having some time before the next meeting I took the chance to have a look in the female and vanity magazines. I flipped a newcomer (how they found new readers in this crowded and competitive market?) magazine InStyle (fashion through celebrities) and look what I saw. For a moment after reading I was staring at it... surprised, I guess.
This pretty lady on the picture is known in Poland photographer Lidia Popiel, wife of popular actor (they live in same area as I do). She is presenting her favourite different clothings at different occasions. This particular below is .... gardening outfit. Hmm... do you also see something like this in your magazines? She says that after job she likes to not change her clothes for gardening, just changing shoes, cos high heels are rediculous and dangerous in this situation (sic!).

Then I went to another meeting, which takes place on the right side of the river. Praga is considered as most dangerous district in Warsaw. It is also very authentic. It is the main part of city with original, lower society inhabitants of old times. There are still people that have never been to Warsaw on the left side of the river.

This is the poorest district and getting more and more popular among artists. Being there lately I noticed many small gardens, that resemble the cottage gardens, which I wanted to show you.

I leave you with pictures now...

THE day to visit the garden center

The day started wet again - it is raining or rather showering since 3 days. That is not enough for birds to keep clean :) some of them need extra shower - God knows where have they been and what were they doing.

This one at first was walking around the pond...

Then saw some possibilities to walk on the water. Look, we keep the water level lower than usual, because otherwise all freshly growing plants would be eaten by grass carp, that is living in our pond. They are monstrous eaters which is called in different sources as "they have the ability to control a wide variety of aquatic plant species". I didn't know that while buying it in the garden center 3 years ago - they are freely sold. Last year I learned that it is advised 1 fish for 1000m2 of water :)) that's amazing - isn't it?

Plants in my pond didn't grow properly last year - or rather they were eaten faster then were able to grow - which resulted in problems with pH balance. So I started to search for more information and I found out that majority of states in the US presently prohibit the fish. I dont know if mine is diploid or triploid (fertile), but I know they need much more food, than my pond can grow. Also they don't have proper conditions for development as well. So in coming days we will clean the pond, which is very dirty as there was no pH balance. While cleaning, we will remove the fishes. There is a lake close to us - it will be its future home.

Jay decided that conditions are comfortable enough to have shower...

Would you tell seeing this picture, that it is a jay having shower? The process took 2-3 minutes. It was such a joy to watch it - amount of feathers tripled, I guess - I never saw such fluffy jay before :)

While some of us are having pleasures, the others are having a hard time... look at this poor rhododendron. I planted most of them 3 years ago and most are not doing too well. I have neutral soil in my garden, so the place for acid lovers was prepared specially with acidic soil, acidic peat etc. Every year I added some MgSO4 to keep proper pH, which for them is between 5 to 6. Lower is also not good, cos they can not absorb the nutrients from the soil below 5 pH.

I even gave them emergency showers with fertiliser, but situation did not improve. My main mistake was - as I understand it now - to not check pH regularly and react in time.

Which I did today. Look what is the result. 6,5 pH is definately not proper. In some other cases it is just below 7 pH. No wonder they look half dead. Fighting soil pH is an endless process, but I will give one more try and one more chance my rhodos.

I made search in the net and there is an advice to use sulphur or FeSO4 (Canadian Rhododendrons and Azalea Society). This made me to remember that a friend of mine is using sulphur, so it should be available in the garden center. Let's go then! Maybe they will have also FeSO4?

This is the garden center that I visit most often - it used to be on the way. Now is more 'off' my ways, but for special needs I go there - cos usually they have what I want.

Of course I could not resist to walk around and have a look at everything they have... some plants are so sweet...

... and space in the garden is limited...

...some plants caught my special attention...

Like this Columbine grouped in large amount...

...or this "Blue-white" lavandula... although I prefer traditional the very basic type Lavandula angustifolia, this one was very tempting...

or this Pelargonium x domesticum called here English Pelargonium....

...or this lovely and absolutely adorable bog rosemary (Andromeda polifolia). Sigh. Another acid loving plant...

...such a beauty....

But looking at the pictures in the net, I have a question: does it look so nice only at the garden center - just freshly grown in super comfortable conditions? cos those on the other pictures in the net look kind of thin and poorely flowering...

On the way back, I decided to make a walk around. Visit in the garden center and close look at so many plants and so many new flowers made me feeling close to nature, so walking around and observing what is going on at this season felt very natural, even if it was very wet. Especially that I was little melancholic - gardener at garden center told me, that sulphur for my rhodos is too radical in his opinion, FeSO4 is not available and they never had it at sale. He adviced me ammonium sulfate as most efficient and mulching with sawdust (fine particles of wood).

This season is so reach in flowers - on the ground and on the trees...

My favourite tree lately Prunus cerasifera - here at least 12 years old. You can see the difference in look, when it is bare at the feets and when there is some planting on the bottom. In this case it looks very lovely with Berberis thunbergii Erecta - in the link there is Polish website, cos I couldn't find any English language website with nice picture. Maybe there is something wrong with name?

Here it is great example of usage of climbing Hydrangea petiolaris - its strong body looks fascinating. Interesting idea to prune it and keep it as shrub and the entrance door.

At the end of the walk I was rewarded and greeted by squirrel, that crossed my way :) for luck?

Right after coming home, I applied ammonum sulfate - will check the pH tomorrow.