Clearing out garden pond

[Kayleigh]

Originally Posted by ~T~

Yeh but there comes a point when the pond is so choked with weed that it will hold very little oxygen and becomes stagnant making it difficult for anything but the hardiest inhabitants to survive.

I did say IF the wildlife looks happy you can see this.
I thought it was obvious nothing would survive if its stagnant and choked.

I rake the surface of my pond regular with a garden rake and this stops it being choked I throw back the oxygenating.

[Littlesparrow]

I have some very pretty blue water iris growing in my pond and they get too over grown every three years or so. I take them out about this time in the year and prune them back, any big clumps I give away.The duck weed can also get out of hand and this I fish out by hand or twig.
A couple of years ago the liner failed and I used the opportunity to enlarge the pond. I did take care to scoop out any frogs and keep some of the old water and mud to start off the new pond.

[Dogghound]

The only further advice I would offer is cutting the arrowhead even further back to possibly 1/4 growth and planting up another 1/4 of the pond with a mixture of native species. This would increase biodiversity you would then have half your pond planted you could then let it grow to fill 3/4 of the pond and keep cutting it back each year or two years.

[Naiad]

As Mimulus is a non-native and very tough it can go a bit bananas. I run a small aquatic nursery and it gets everywhere, it's a nightmare You have to stay on top of it constantly. They say the only thing left after a nuclear war would be cockroaches, but I've often thought that in fact it would be cockroaches and Mimulus!

[Dogghound]

Originally Posted by Naiad

They say the only thing left after a nuclear war would be cockroaches, but I've often thought that in fact it would be cockroaches and Mimulus!

And New Zealand Pygmyweed

[Red Robin]

Isn't Mimulus valuable in homeopathy?

[Red Robin]

I think that some NZ Pigmyweed(?) was included in the gift of some water Iris's from a friend when I created my wildlife pond in June. It has very pretty small white flowers and has very usefully spread to better conceal the black plastic ramp on my pond liner. I simply prune it where I don't want it to spread - No problem. My Giant Water Snail seems to like it.

I can understand how it would be a problem for those who have much bigger ponds or who don't have time to manage them sufficiently.

[Ladywell]

Thank you all for your input. I didn't realise that mimulus was not an indigenous species - it grows on the river bank on one of fields. It is is good for insects and pupating dragonflies climb up it --- but it really took over. As I said in my first post our tiny pond was non-productive this year in terms of dragonflies, snails (we have none) and no frog spawn so obviously something wasn't right. Have cleared the mimulus and lots of the arrowhead and will top up with rainwater. What I would like now is advice on what plants I should have to get the oxygen levels right - thanks all