Pond time

In the big pond, the water lily tubular roots had got rather big and the plants did not look very healthy. And there have been no sighting of newts this years. In the middle sized pond, the marsh marigold was doing OK, but the water was badly infested with duckweed - which might be fine in agricultural lagoons in warm countries, but is not fine in very small ponds in suburban gardens here. Difficult stuff to get rid of. In the small pond, the rush was going OK, but BH was giving it the evil eye.

None of the ponds have been cleared out for years.

So after deep thought, we decided to go for a late spring clean and clear the lot out. Start over with the best that Chessington Garden Centre can offer.

First out was the water lily. Heavy to heave out more or less in one piece and sporting a couple a large tubers, one plastic pot and one concrete slab, small and rectangular. Baled the pond out. That is to say sludgy black water full of lots of decaying acorns, leaves and such like - and more or less no live stock, apart from a couple of brace of mosquito bites on my right forearm, which irritated for a day or so.

Second out was the marsh marigold, which was much easier going. Several handfuls of duckweed. One more plastic pot and two bricks. Lots more sludgy black water. Some around thirsty plants, some on the No.2 compost heap, probably dry too.

Mattock just visible, behind and to the right of the barrow. Much more effective than a pick axe for the sort of work to follow.

Third out was the rush, by far the most challenging. Deployed serious pruner, garden shears, small fork, small spade, fill-size mattock and pruning saw. Fiddled about for a while, just pulling odd bits out. Eventually mattock action started to lift the root mass as a whole, after which the pruning saw made short work of it. The pond was entirely taken up with this root mass. Plus another plastic tub and two more bricks. Don't think I have damaged the outer tub with the mattock although it was bouncing around a bit with all the pushing and shoving. And it did take one direct hit. We shall see.

I remembered that digging out pampas grass roots, maybe twenty year ago, was a similar performance. Worse roots, but not usually planted in and around tubs which get in the way. And that I left a pampas grass on my allotment. Maybe my successor had fun with its roots.

Baling the two smaller tubs followed. One middle sized brown slug and that was about it on the macro livestock front.

Next step will be washing the tubs out thoroughly to make sure all trace of duckweed is gone. Toying with the idea of some kind of disinfectant, but BH doesn't seem very keen on this. Not moved by talk of using sulphur fumes to fumigate greenhouses in the kitchen gardens of stately homes of old.

Presently wondering whether without the weight of the water inside, rain water outside is going to push them up a bit, despite having put maybe six inches of clean water back pending further action. Might be a bit of a performance to get them down again if they do come up. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

PS: the 623rd batch of bread was going on at the same time as the pond clearing and the multi-tasking meant that I left the second rise slightly too long - perhaps 10 minutes out of more than two hours - which resulted in bubbles and collapse more or less immediately after entry into the oven. But it seems to have recovered quite well. Cutting and tasting to come.