Have you created a garden pond with aquatic plants, but don't know exactly how to overwinter your pond plants? This may seem difficult at first glance, but with the right plant care, your plants can survive the cold season. It is important to prepare each plant variety for low temperatures before winter sets in. This depends on the types of plants you have in your pond. Here is some important information and steps you can take to keep your plant life alive during the winter season.
Maintain your own water garden and overwinter pond plants
Before you prepare your pond plants for winter, you should remove as many dead leaves and debris as possible from the pond. Wilted plants at the edge of the pond should also be cut back. Removing rotting leaves and other debris that has fallen into the garden pond will help eliminate toxic gases such as hydrogen sulfide that build up during theWinter season in the pondaccumulate, reduce. These gases are toxic to fish. Additionally, some plant varieties cannot tolerate winter temperatures and require a safe place to survive. However, for hardy specimens, overwintering pond plants can simply mean submerging them under pond water.
So before you get into it, it's important to winterize the pond itself. This will help keep the ecosystem healthy, keep your pond fish alive during the winter, and of course help any plants you choose to overwinter in your pond.
Hardy pond plants are perennials that grow or survive and go dormant during the cold winter months. Non-hardy plants, on the other hand, die if left out in winter. You should overwinter your pond plants when the first frost comes. It is best to categorize aquatic plants to determine a plant care approach.
How to winterize your pond
- First, remove leaves and debris from your pond.
- Trim back dead or dying foliage from your pond plants.
- Add beneficial bacteria for cold water (optional).
- When fertilizing your pond plants, you should stop once the water temperature reaches around 16 degrees.
- If you have a water pump, you should remove it, clean it and store it properly.
- Also remove and clean any filter media.
- If necessary, add a pond heater or de-icer to your pond to keep it from completely freezing over and to allow for proper gas exchange.
How you can overwinter hardy pond plants
Most cold-tolerant aquatic plants go dormant over the winter months and the foliage dies back, so you can stop fertilizing when the weather cools. Hardy water lilies, for example, are among the most popular pond plants and do not require much care in winter. Simply cut back yellowed leaves and place the pots in a deep part of the pond where the water is warmer in winter. Lotus can be treated in the same way and can survive the winter as long as its tubers do not freeze.
- Trim any dying or dead leaves from the plants. If you overwinter hardy water lilies, you should cut the plants back to the crowns.
- Sink the planters in the deepest part of your pond where the water temperature is a few degrees warmer. It is recommended that the pond is at least 80cm deep.
- Return the plants to their original location in the spring after the ice has melted.
- If your garden pond is too shallow to overwinter plants, you can store them in a Styrofoam cooler in your garage at 5 degrees. During this time, keep them cool, moist and protected from light.
- Some bog plants can actually be left in place over the winter. Simply cut them to just above the water level.
- In spring, remove any dead or dying leaves from the plants.
- Do not allow the tuber or rhizome of hardy plants to be exposed to actual water freezing or covered with ice. This can cause the aquatic plants to turn into mush and not last until spring.
Overwintering of aquatic plants in cases of cold intolerance
Non-hardy pond plants can be grown as annuals in areas with low winter temperatures. You can remove floating aquatic plants such as water lettuce and water hyacinth from the pond before winter and compost them. However, such plant varieties are invasive in many areas. Therefore, it is important to ensure that they are disposed of properly so that they do not end up in public waters. You can enable other non-hardy aquatic plants to overwinter by simply caring for them as houseplants. Simply store the plants in a saucer filled with water. Place it in a sunny window or use a grow light with a timer set for 12 to 14 hours a day.
Non-hardy plants mostly include tropical plant species that grow outside the hardiness zone. When dealing with pond plants that are not hardy, you have two options in winter:
- Move the plants indoors to prevent them from freezing and dying.
- Treat the aquatic plants as annuals and replace them after composting in the spring.
If you choose the former, remove the plants from the pond before the first frost and bring them indoors. In order for you to be able to overwinter such pond plants, they must remain in the water and have a temperature of at least 18 °C. As already written above, depending on the type of aquatic plant, they need up to 10-14 hours of sunlight per day. You can return the plants to your pond or water garden in the spring.
So with a little careful preparation, you can ensure that your pond plants survive the cold winter months. If you have a small garden pond, it only takes an hour or two to winterize your plants and you can look forward to healthy, thriving aquatic plants in the spring.
