News from Waterside Nursery
March 2010 - It should start to warm up soon and when it does we need to be ready.
Now is the time to add Barleystraw pouches to the pond so that they have time to activate before the warm weather comes. They take about a month to provide an inhibitor effect to the blanketweed or single cell green algae that will start to grow if it has the chance.
The other job when the ice has cleared is to check the volume and condition of your submerged oxygenating plants. They should be green and healthy not black or clear stemmed and they should occupy about 30% of your pond volume. You may need to remove some decaying plants and replace with fresh ones. Please dispose of your unwanted pond plants carefully in your compost heap and do not throw them in other water areas. (Be Plant Wise).
The submerged oxygenators are vital at this time of year as they use nutrients in the pond water and act as competition to the greenwater algae. If you have plenty of active oxygeators you stand a chance of starving out the algae growths.
February 2010 - There has been ice on the pond for most of this month and even though we kept an area of ice thawed every day we have lost a number of frogs. They floated to the surface once the rest of the ice thawed. This is thought to be related to the amount of oxygen in the water. The blanket of snow blocked out the light so the oxygenating plants were unable to photosynthesize in the darkness and this combined with continued decaying of vegetation in a sealed environment could have reduced the levels of oxygen in the water and killed the frogs. We only lost one fish through the winter - they must have remained deeper and less active than the frogs. The birds appreciated our efforts and visited the thawed area of water to bathe in.
A survey has been undertaken by http://www.pondconservation.org.uk/ to find the effects of this harsh winter on our pond creatures and we look forward to reading the results.
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Our 2010 plans include our first venture into The Chelsea Flower Show. We will be exhibiting our Pond display in the Grand Floral Pavilion. We look forward to meeting all our more southerly based customers there.
For our full list of Shows for 2010 see the Shows page. |
2009 has been a good year for mail order through this website. The redesign last winter has proved popular and more customers feel happy to purchase their pond plants by mail order. Our service of supplying ready rooted pond plants rather than bareroot pieces in need of potting by the customer has also been well received.
As 2009 nears its end we have won more medals - Tatton Park was a Gold Medal winning display as were Harrogate and Southport. Silver Gilt at RHS Malvern Spring, NEC Gardeners World and for our first display at Hampton Court. Also at Tatton Park our pond containers were used in the Finchale College Back to Back Show Garden.
This favourite view of the stand was photographed by many visitors to the Show and features the smaller of our container ponds planted with 4 baskets of Anemopsis californica for mass effect. You can follow the links to find these products available for sale on the website.
In 2008 we achieved a major goal - RHS Gold Medals at all 3 of the shows we exhibited at (Malvern, NEC Gardener's World and Tatton Park). We also won Gold at Harrogate, The Royal Show and Shrewsbury Flower Shows.
July 2008 - The Garden magazine (The RHS Journal) printed an article written by Roy Lancaster following his visit to Waterside Nursery earlier in the year.
"The fine range of plants for ponds and steamsides offered by Waterside Nursery in Leicestershire took Roy Lancaster back to days when he first began appreciacting aquatic plants".......
To read this article open each page listed below:
Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4
June 2008 - The Garden magazine (The RHS Journal) printed an article entitled 'Ponds in pots' - Aquatic plants for small spaces. This article looks at "the habitat of aquatic and emergent plants that can be accomodated in containers - even in the smallest of gardens" .........
and we were delighted to have been able to take part in this feature by providing the plants to create the finished containers for the photographs.
To read this article open each page listed below:
Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4
Malvern Spring Show 2008 and Waterside Nursery won its first RHS Gold Medal for Aquatic Plants. Linda proudly holds the Gold Medal in front of the display.
