I find Pond plant 'socks' kill newts

[Shawit]

I placed 4 planting socks in my pond before Easter. The 'socks' look smooth to the eye. However, they present a mesh of fine threads on their surface that 'snare' newt legs and are even able to wrap around the body of a newt. Unfortunately, the first 2 newts I found that had shredded stumps left for legs were not still attached to the socks and I suspected a disease or predator as having caused the damage and their subsequent deaths. However, I then found 1 with it's leg still trapped by the fibres. I checked the socks for any exposed fibres - they are effectively covered in them.To my regret I left the socks in the pond after checking them as thoroughly as possible. I then found another newt with fibres wrapped around it's body.

Pond planting socks cost a lot of money and, in my experience, are very effective at killing newts!

[Kayleigh]

That's terrible can you email the company that makes them and complain to the shop as they should know about this and at least let other be aware of this potential hazard..
Have you removed them or still have then in your pond..
Maybe if you put the plant sock inside a TWO pair of tights to contain the fibres and stop any more deaths or see if the tights work.

[King Edward]

Originally Posted by Shawit

Pond planting socks cost a lot of money and, in my experience, are very effective at killing newts!

Sorry to hear about the newts. Definitely sounds like you need to stop using the socks. What did you have planted in them? I'd switch to either planting directly on the bottom, using stones as weights if necessary, or in the standard rigid mesh baskets. Either way, if you use clean sand/gravel as a planting medium then leakage into the water wouldn't cause any problems unlike soil/aquatic compost.

Probably wasn't your first thought at the time, but it would be very useful to have photos of the newt trapped in the fibres as proof of the problem (although obviously I'm not suggesting you should let it happen again).

Given that the socks were expensive, you should also return them to the retailer explaining the problem and demand a full refund. By law, goods sold are required to be 'fit for purpose' and these clearly aren't due to the threat to wildlife. You could also make an official complaint to the manufacturer.

[dampflippers]

That's awful!

As an alternative, buy some hessian and sew that into bags, or just put plant and planting medium in centre and gather edges and tie (like a wedding favour). The hessian will rot eventually.

Were these the socks to place on a shelf? Or were they the sort to hang over the side of a preformed pond without shelves?

If they were the latter, I solved this problem in one of my ponds by thrading wire through the top of the small (1L) plant basket and bent the wire to form hooks which hooked on the roll over pond edge.

Or just tie the plant to a pebble and drop onto shelf or bottom of pond.

[Shawit]

I removed the 'socks' , that are designed to sit on ledges when I realised what was happening to my newts was unavoidable if the socks remained in the pond. Tights idea is a good one but I'm not sure it would guarantee newts wouldn't come into contact with the socks' fibres - newts, tadpoles and small frogs do go into where you cut the socks to insert the plants.

The retailer, who has been recommended on this site, was contacted as soon as I was aware of the problem. They have contacted the manufacturer. The retailer didn't offer any sort of refund and as of last night haven't made the problem clear on their website. I am obviously really annoyed and am trying to publicise the problem via the internet.

The pond was profiled to get the depths I wanted for the plants, tadpoles e.t.c. using these socks. The intended replacements are rigid baskets and guttering.