Was thinking of putting a layer of soil in the pond over the liner to directly plant the lilies, is that stupid?
Only thing is if it has little rocks in it, and you walked on it, could puncture the liner. That is bad. so I was wondering if anyone has done anything like that? I guess you could even just do 'spots' and put rocks around it, plant in that instead of using pots. I was thinking it would look more natural that way?
can I put soil in the pond over my liner?
Frilly would the soil stay put ?
well ? I don't know why not, I guess earth bottom ponds that don't have liners still have fairly clear water much of the time. Of course since they are not filtered and stuff the algae growth, or 'pea soup' is the biggest problem with keeping those ponds clear, not the dirt muddying up the water?
I don't know. I would think it would stay put especially if you put some stones around it in areas.
not sure.
why do you not want to use a pot?
Do you have a pump and skimmer?. i do not think the soil will stay in one place with the plants. Except for cat tails my plants are all potted . Belle
well I was thinking if the bottom of the pond had soil, I could directly plant the lilies and not have to lift out those heavy pots, and not worry so much about the plants becoming root bound so fast as they do in pots.
Plus I thought it would look more natural that way.
My lilies are all growing in the pond without pots. I originally put the roots of the lilies in a piece of burlap and tied string around the stems. Also added a few small rocks in with the roots to keep the plant on the bottom of the pond. You could also add some rocks around it on the bottom of the pond. The roots will grow thru the burlap and the burlap will disintegrate with time.
I would not add soil to the pond.
ok let me get that straight. There is no soil around your lilies at all? They just live in the water? ?!
I guess I am just really into this, because lifting the pots out kills me. And my dh is no help when it comes to anything with a flower on it lol
The roots find there way under the gravel that is there.
I too couldn't lift the pots anymore. Way too heavy for me.
The lilies will spread all over. And the roots are real hard to pull up.
So how do you thin them? I guess drain the pond and pull the out by hand?
I don't plan on putting gravel in my pond. So maybe that won't work for me.
If you put soil in your pond it will be a big mistake. It would get inot your filter and pump. it would make cleaning the pond impossible. If you have cat tails they will take over the whole pond. we put our cat tails in a really big pail from home depot and just keep them where they are. our llies are in pots we just leave them in the same place winter and summer. we drain our pond once a year and vacuum out all of the sludge and fish dump. and leaves . but we leave all the pots in the pond. we catch the fish and put them in a blow up children s pool. it take us a few hours and then we are done. we get out so much sludge by the buckest full. we put that in our compost. We sweep it up with a dust broom.
If you do put dirt in and then decide to take it out it will be so hard , next to impossible. I have never heard of any one doing that, if you go to the local library you can get out many books on ponds. Many... we read about 15 books on ponds before we decided to build ours. they may give you ideas.
Hope this helps you ...
Elaine
My son has to thin mine out for me.
Well I haven't decided if I am going to use a filter or not. I have a filter in my other pond, and it is constantly so full of junk, I don't see how it 'filters' anything! I could literally clean it all the time, it just looks like algae or sludge to me. Even if it is caught in a filter it is still IN the pond until it is cleaned out. It is a terrible pain to clean as it is submerged and weighs a ton, I have an awful time lifting it out, and usually as I am trying to get it out of there, most the gunk that is 'caught' in it, goes out everywhere into the water. Well so much for that!
I thought about just setting up a UV light and a fountain. That will help keep the water clear and moving. Then I will just drain it out once a year and clean it.
I am not going to put any gravel in it though, I will have to get in it to clean it, and I would be afraid of walking on the gravel as it could puncture the liner. Plus I think the black liner helps it to look deeper, and I like that since most of the pond is only a foot deep. I have one area about 4 foot square that is 2 1/2 feet deep. I think that will be good for the fish over the winter. I plan on only putting in goldfish, I don't want koi, as I have been told they eat vegetation and I want to grow lots of water plants in it.
I guess I will just use pots and then I could drain the pond once a year and re pot then, as I would not have to stand on my head lifting them out at least.
Frilly
I would be worried about the soil getting into my filters and causing problems if the lilies were planted directly into the pond. The other worry that I would have is the waterlilies would take over the bottom of your pond. I have heard where people use the plastic dish tubs and only divide their lilies every 3 years or so. Personally I like to divide my waterlilies every other year.
Waterlilies are heavy feeders. You could get into your pond to fertilize your waterlilies. I know some people fertilize their waterlilies every month - that is too much for me, so I use the year long waterlily fertilizer spikes.
My waterlilies are planted in pea gravel with egg rock on top. My koi cannot lift the egg rock off the top, so the pea gravel in the bottom of the pond is minimal. Also, my understanding is the koi are after the clay like soils that are often used to plant the waterlilies and not so much after the lilies themselves. I have had plants though that they do like to eat and I stay away from those unless I put it there specifically for the koi.
Wondering if perhaps you have a brother or a nice strong son that could help you lift out the waterlilies if you do not want to get into the water. The set up we have is with bell wire threaded through the top of each pot for a 'handle' and then on the end of a long pole, there is a hook and that is used to lift the pots out of the water. This is done twice a year as we vacuum both in the Spring with start up and in the Fall with shut down.
may be you could get a catalog or go to a pond store and get an outside filter, ours i san outside of the pond filter, we never clean it out or even open it. it is a biological filter. we dug a hole put it in , put some rocks around it and some plants. We do clean out our pond and turn the filter off in the winter. But we never have to pick it up. We used to move the plants to the bottom , now we leave everything as it is and this year the pond is looking better then ever the out side plants are growing so big already. we have a pump in the pond and when we stop the pump we just leave it in the pond.This is the 4th year and still going strong Pondmaster pump. I don't have a skimmer, i just go out and use the net and scoop out blooms or leaves . After spring i don't have a problem, in the fall i cover it with a net so the leaves don't fall in. we only clean our pond once a year. I am going to post a funny picture with our fish in the baby pool waiting to go back to the pond
here is my husband cleaning the pond this spring
your pond is beautiful. Carolyn love the pond lilies. No I do not have anyone to help me clean it, my brother is not dependable at all, would rather have his teeth pulled than do a piece of work. My dh is not interested in it at all. My girls are too puny lol
I guess I could clean it out spring and fall. I have only cleaned my old pond once a year in the spring, but doing both would be better probably.
My biggest problem is algae. I think I could get rid of that with a UV filter.
frogs are cute! I don't have any. only toads for some reason.
I guess I will just use pots then and suffer lol. I have been using the once a year pond tabs so I don't have to mess with that. I noticed lilies are heavy feeders as I planted a small small small piece of a lily and it was root bound by the end of the season in a 1 gal container!
You could tie a rope to your pots so you can pull them out easily whenever you need to.
yes I think I will rig up some kind of handle on the pots before I put them in.
We used the plastic coated bellwire that you can buy at Walmart to make handles on all of our waterlily pots. Here are mine from last March after fertilizing and before they went back into the pond.
Carolyn thats a super idea ! You have a lot of lilys how big is your pond. why is the wire called bell wire ????
Elaine
We're going to try an experiment with hydroton (expanded clay balls) this year. They float, so my husband is putting mesh over the top of the pot. They don't disintegrate, are very light and will hold the roots in place. We just have to make sure the mesh is small enough to keep the hydroton in but large enough to let the leaves poke out.
Elaine
apparently the bell wire is for low voltage electrical applications. For some reason, I thought it had something to do with telephones, but now I am not so sure. In any event, it does the job and is coated with plastic, so the metal wire is not exposed.
This message was edited May 9, 2010 11:58 AM
The wire is called bell wire because it was originally used to wire doorbells in homes. It's nothing more than rubber-covered copper wire, altho today the covering is most likely plastic.
I grow all of my plants in pea gravel, with larger river rocks over it. No soil at all. The roots take more nurtrition out of the water, which helps keep the water cleaner too. The heavy upright plants that I don't want tipping over, I plant in the half sized cement blocks, like a vast, and fill with river rocks to anchor. I don't use soil or fertilizer.
I might try that.
I put some duckweed in my old pond a few days ago and the goldfish? ate it in 2 days :(
I didn't think they would do that. oh, well, it's pretty but I am not going to be able to keep any it looks like.
Does anyone keep minnows around to eat the mosquitos? I'll have a lot of small crevices and shallow places around the edges, the goldfish won't be able to get to those. So I thought minnows might work. I think they should over winter and continue to breed?
dont most lillies need more than foot in depth?? I was under the impression they needed to be more like 3 ft deep... at that depth it seems it would be more like a Bog garden than a water garden
It depends on the lily, some need more depth than the others.
I have one in one foot of water, perry's baby red, it doesn't get large.
The little peach colored feeder fish at the pet stores work great in very small areas to control mosquitos. I'm sure they have a name, but don't know it...they are usually in the tank next to the small feeder goldfish. I've had some show up 3 years later that I was sure would not survive the extreme heat, but there they are!
hmm I don't remember any peach colored feeder fish. Mostly they sell goldfish as feeders here. Maybe they sell different ones in FL? They do sell female guppies as feeders, but they aren't peach. more of a brownish gray, light color.
I could probably just go to the bait shop?
Carolynn: love your plant pots and wire. I tried to concoct something like that for this year but struggled with making holes in my pots-that plastic is thick-I think I will use the drill and put holes in them at the next fertilizer time. Right now I used the 1970's style macramade (spelling) string and knots system on my pots and them tied the string mass to these (ugly-but useful) orange tent stakes. Unfortunately one lotus pot dumped out and is causing my bottom drain to have to be cleaned out daily until I can vac it out. With my strings, I can control the depth of each pot easily and put it anywhere in the pond . I do like your pole with a hook on it. I might be doing that as well . . .
Bob: Love the pond and the picture of the hubby cleaning the pond. Is that a pond vac he is using? That tubing looks like the tubing on my pond vac.