Wildlife in Winter Ponds

This may seem contradictory, but you want to leave a little bit of debris in the pond when preparing it for winter.

Some water gardeners net out the fish, completely drain the water and scrub out the pond, refilling it with fresh water.

Frogs, tadpoles, snails and microscopic pond life need to burrow down into mud and leaves to survive the winter.

Fish also hibernate on the bottom, settling in around a bed of leaves and mud. I remove about 90% of the leaves and silt that have accumulated over the summer.

Leave the rest as "bedding material."

You'll be amazed at the diversity of pond life that emerges in spring. Keep in mind that tree leaves will continually blow into the pond as long as the water isn't frozen.

I recommend covering the pond with bird netting.

This black plastic netting is almost invisible and prevents tree leaves and debris from getting into the pond.

About The Author

Brett Fogle is the owner of MacArthur Water Gardens and several pond-related websites including macarthurwatergardens.com and pond-filters-online.com. He also publishes a free monthly newsletter called PondStuff! with a reader circulation of over 9,000 pond owners. To sign up for the free newsletter and receive a complimentary 'New Pond Owners Guide' for joining, just visit MacArthur Water Gardens at our website.

brett@macarthurwatergardens.com

In The News:


A garden good enough to eat
WalesOnline, United Kingdom - Oct 11, 2008
“Basically, edible landscaping is a way of growing flowers and vegetables together in a way that looks beautiful and is good to eat. ...

The Herald-Times (subscription)

Gardeners are vanguard of Green Revolution
The Herald-Times (subscription), IN - 11 hours ago
By Joel M. Lerner Washington Post Thirty years ago, most home landscaping consisted of lawn, foundation plantings, a few trees and perhaps a bed for flowers ...

Toledo area women redesigned their yards to suit their families
Toledo Blade, OH - 6 hours ago
In one area of the garden, she has easily personalized the landscape by painting everyone's names on the larger rocks. 'It's a great stroll down memory lane ...

Home and Garden Calendar
Indianapolis Star, United States - Oct 10, 2008
Collect seeds from the prairie habitat and native flower beds to use in home landscaping. Instructions on how to collect seeds will be given by naturalists. ...

Neil Sperry: For unusual landscaping areas, try a creative or ...
Fort Worth Star Telegram, TX - Oct 10, 2008
Neil Sperry publishes Gardens magazine and hosts Texas Gardening radio show 8-11 am Saturdays and Sundays on KRLD/1080 AM. Reach him during those hours at ...

Miriam Jabour in the Garden
Vicksburg Post, MS - Oct 11, 2008
... but small animals that love to munch on some of our favorite bulbs can disrupt our landscaping endeavors. Nothing is more upsetting to a gardener than ...

Houston Chronicle

Grow great salads
Houston Chronicle, United States - 1 hour ago
Learn about gardening classes, community and school gardens, farmers' markets, organic landscaping and more at www.urbanharvest.org.

Gardening by community
The Desert Sun, CA - Oct 11, 2008
“Developing Guidelines for HOA Utilizing Desert Landscape” presented by Tess Anas of Summit HOA at noon. “Garden Club” presented by Robin Pokorski of ...

Fashion Gardening
The Foothill Weeklies, California - Oct 10, 2008
... I decided to warm things up by inviting my “Landscaping Queen” to help me the next day, in preparing the proposed rose garden for planting. ...

Home and garden briefs
Florida Times-Union, FL - Oct 10, 2008
With a little help from the Reflections of Nature Garden Center, you can brighten your fall landscape with native wildflowers. James Loper will discuss ...
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