The start of Autumn

The start of Autumn

At the start of Autumn your pond plants will start to collapse. Did we actually have a Summer this year?

Pay attention to pond plants now Autumn is here:

  • Waterlily leaves begin to turn brown - remove them from the pond so that they do not sink to the bottom and rot under water over Winter.
  • 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 to reappear next Spring.
  • Rescue Frogbit plants and Sagittaria sagittifolia bulbils before starting Autumn maintenance.

British Native Frogbit (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae):

  • Starting to breakdown 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.
  • These will easily be lost if you do not remove some now while you can still see them
  • Put some plantlets in a bucket for safety until after you have finished your Autumn maintenance in November.
  • Don't forget to put a label on your bucket so some kind person doesn’t empty the bucket for you!

British Native Arrowhead (Sagittaria sagittifolia):

  • Looking yellow leaved and over.
  • Find the bulbils in the mud of the pond near the basket and replace them in their baskets.
  • The parent plant will die back after a couple of years but the new plants do not grow from the centre of the old basket but from the bulbs that were set down 6-8" away from the original basket.

What your pond plants will look like at the start of Autumn:

Tree leaves:

  • Tree leaves will soon start to fall and the covering net should be fixed across the pond 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.
  • Leaves should not be allowed to sink to the base of the pond to rot.
  • Some tree leaves take a long time to rot away and use up a lot of oxygen in the process.
  • Use a dipping net to remove them by hand before they sink.

Net earlier rather than later to avoid extra work!

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