Keep wildlife ponds free from blanketweed:
Organic blanketweed control in wildlife ponds uses organically grown barley straw grown with no pesticides:
- Available either as the straw itself (Barleystraw minibales) or the liquid concentrate (Barley Bio Algae Control) for a smaller water area.
- Barleystraw products work by inhibiting the algae growth not by killing it.
- These products are safe for fish, wildlife, pets and children.
Avoid chemical products in the pond water:
- They can kill helpful enzymes and bacteria in your pond.
- Then your pond becomes dependent on regular, ongoing, expensive chemical treatments.
- Many products claim to kill blanketweed and algae.
- These will kill the blanketweed but they reduce it to make sludge on the pond base.
- Producing a high nutrient level in the pond water.
- The high level of nutrients will encourage & feed the next wave of blanketweed.
- The chemical killer will not remove the sludge from the pond base.
- They are not balanceing the pond ecosystem for the wildlife
- Organic blanketweed control methods will.
- Beware - chemicals could harm or inhibit the growth of your pond plants too.
Good planting and maintenance is needed too:
The correct balance of planting in your wildlife pond:
- Use Oxygenating plants to compete for the mineral salts at a rate of 2 portions per m2 of surface area and
- Surface cover pond plants to block out sunlight and keep the water cooler - 50-70% of water surface covered with leaf.
- Plenty of Shelf pond plants to use nutrients from the water for different types of growth and flowering in different seasons across the year.