Prepare for Autumn early! It has come very quickly this year.

Your pond plants are starting to collapse and the trees are shedding their leaves.

 Prepare yourself for what your shelf pond plants will look like in Autumn:

• Don't panic that your pond plants have turned brown and the leaves are starting to rot.
• Look at Tips and Advice - Your pond plants in Autumn to see our Autumn pond plant photos.
• On the Nursery, we see that Butomus umbellatus and Juncus ensifolius have already turned brown, and Equisetum scirpoides is turning orange.
• Remove the brown leaves on Butomus umbellatus so they do not fall into the water.
• Leave Juncus ensifolius foliage and cut back when the new shoots appear in Spring. Equisetum scirpoides should not be cut back at all.
• Other plants you DO NOT cut back in Autumn are: Acorus species, Cyperus involucratus  Eriophorum angustifolium  Isolepis cernua Myriophyllum Red Stem  Potentilla palustris  Typha minima
• British Native Arrowhead (Sagittaria sagittifolia) is now looking yellow-leaved and over.
• Find the bulbils in the mud of the pond near the basket and place them back into their baskets. New plants grow from the bulbs that were set down 6-8" away from the original basket that you relocate back to the basket.

Tree leaves:

• Tree leaves will soon start to fall. Prepare for Autumn by covering the pond with a net to prevent them falling into the water
• Put the net in place as soon as the first winds are forecast - the first windy night will bring down more leaves than you expect.
• Do not allow leaves to sink to the base of the pond to rot.
• If the leaves fall to the pond base they will decompose and create a layer of sludge.
• This sludge layer is like compost - high in nutrients.
• Some tree leaves take a long time to rot away and use up a lot of oxygen in the process.
• When the water warms in Spring these nutrients will cause algae or blanketweed.
• Use a dipping net to remove them all by hand before they sink.
• Use this rich compost on the veg garden where it will be of value to the veg next year!

Preparation is key - net earlier rather than later to avoid extra work!

Pay attention to other surface pond plants now Autumn is near:

• Waterlily leaves turn brown - remove them from the pond so they do not sink to the bottom and rot underwater.
• Remove any annual floating plants that will turn black in the first frosts and begin to decay in your pond water.
• Net duckweed out from pond surface so that it does not seed down to the bottom of the pond & reappear next Spring.
• In preparation for Autumn rescue some Frogbit plants

British Native Frogbit (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae):

• Is starting to turn yellow and disintegrate now as temperatures drop
• Dormant buds will drop off the leaves and fall to the base of the pond
• Buds are 5x10mm or 1/8" x 1/4" and look like apple pips
• Act now while you can still see the plants and before the buds fall off.
• Put some plantlets into a bucket for safety and put the buds back into the pond after Autumn maintenance in November.
• Don't forget to put a large label on the bucket so some kind person doesn’t empty the bucket for you and you lose next year's plants!

  

  Nymphaea alba

  

  Frogbit in Autumn as dormant buds

  

  Sagittaria sagittifolia loose bulbils

  

  Keep falling tree leaves out of the pond

  
  
  
  

  Be prepared with Long pond gloves:

• In preparation for Autumn work order Long arm Pond Gloves.
• Long-arm Pond Gloves help keep your hands and arms clean, dry and warm while working.
• 2 hand sizes available - Small hand size (approx size 8) and a larger hand size (approx size 10 glove size)
• The water will only get colder from now on!

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  Small handed long pond gloves(pair)

  

  Long pond gloves(pair)size 10

  
  

   

  For related products - see below: