October 2004 Meeting

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Time - - - 7PM

Place - - - Butterfield Youth Services

Address - - - 1180 Highway WW, Marshall

The program will be a video on how to construct various types of water features.

The community service project at Indian Foothills Golf Course is partly completed. The hole for the pond is complete as well as the general contouring of the surrounding area. The recent rains have caused some delays in the work. The liner and rocks have been obtained so that we can work on that part as soon as it dries up enough. We have had a good group of workers but we can always use additional help. If you would like to work, contact Larry Arrowood, 886-8191. We are including some photos of the work below.

Croaking From the Lily Pad

Our club’s by-laws state that one purpose of the club is to spread information about water gardening to the public. One way we do that is by our community service projects. The club has done 6 projects since we started in 1996. The water gardens that are in nursing homes primarily are for the enjoyment of the residents of the home. The ones that are in public areas such as the Jim the Wonder Dog, Veterans Memorial Park, and Blackwater are seen by thousands of people each year. These water gardens help to stimulate an interest in water gardening for those who visit them.

Our current project at Indian Foothills Golf Course will be seen by many Marshall residents and out of town visitors. It will serve as a way to introduce people to the joy of water gardening as well as an attractive addition to the park.

Our club should be proud of the community service projects we have done in this area.

December Christmas Dinner

The time and place of our Christmas dinner will be announced in our next newsletter. If you have an idea of where to hold the Christmas dinner, contact Sandy Hendrix, 886-4130.

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Gardening Tips

Linda Siler, Springfield Water Garden Society president, was the September program for our club meeting. Linda gave us a lot of really good information that was enjoyed by the club members. Listed below are a few of her ideas and some from The Pond Doctor.

	Linda feels that one of the most important items to have is a pond test kit. Water needs to be tested if fish scrape their sides against the pool, do barrel rolls, stay under the waterfall, or are not eating. Testing your water for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, and the Ph level is very important to the well being of your fish. The most accurate test results are rendered by dry tab tests. Pond water is collected in the test tube to which is added a dry tablet. Once the tablet has dissolved the water color is compared to a color chart to determine if your water contains too much ammonia or nitrates. For too much ammonia, execute a fifty percent water change. Avoid stressing fish and plants by drastic changes in water temperature and chlorinated water. If necessary, move fish and plants to temporary safe quarters.
	When potting lilies, you can mix your own fertilizer. Fill a wheelbarrow with garden soil and add 1 cup each of blood meal, bone meal, and straight 10-10-10 fertilizer. Put 1 or 2 lily tabs in the bottom of the container and fill the container with the soil mixture. This will give the lilies a great start and you’ll use less fertilizer tabs. Note: don’t use the fertilized soil if you repot your lilies in the fall since you do not want to fertilize lilies after September.
	If nitrites are too high use 2.5 lbs. of non-iodized salt per 100 gallons of water to detoxify nitrites.
	An over abundance of snails in your pond can be treated with a mix of 1 part bleach to 10 parts water. Douse plants in the prepared water and rinse off.
	Linda said when she cleans her pond she puts a large container in the middle and fills it with the pond water. As she is draining the pond she puts the fish in the container. This causes less stress on ht fish and makes it easy when she want to put the fish back in the pond.
	Add 1 oz. of Murate of Potash per 1000 gallons of water every 4 to 6 weeks to help keep down the algae.

Tropical or marginally hardy reeds and grasses can be wintered indoors as houseplants. They should be set in dishes of water near a window providing bright sunlight. A grow-light may prove beneficial if the available sunlight is inadequate. These plants should be brought indoors before the first frost. Plants that have been subjected to but one hard frost may simply shut down and die.

Charles B. Thomas, of Lilypons, suggests how to winter tropical bulbous-type plants: Remove the plant from the pool before the first frost. Cut back the foliage and remove most of the soil. Place the plant in a cool, dry jar and cover the bulb with wet newspapers or a damp cloth. After two weeks, remove the plant and thoroughly clean the bulb. Store it in water for two weeks. Then pack it in damp, but not wet, sand inside a glass jar. Seal and label the jar and store it at 60°F for the winter. In early March, remove the jar's lid and fill the jar two-thirds with water. Place the jar in a sunny window to sprout the bulb. Once the temperature outside has stabilized at 70°F, the plant may be repotted and returned to the pool.

The tropical umbrella palm (Cyperus) and papyrus may be overwintered by a method of propagation. Cut off the heads of the plants with a bit of stem attached and float them in water indoors under bright light. The heads will quickly root and may then be potted and treated as a houseplant for the remainder of the season.

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Calendar of Events

Find more information on each of these items within this newsletter.

Part of our November meeting will be our annual photo contest. You may enter one photo in each of the following categories:

The rules are simple—The photo must be taken by a club member, but the picture can be of any garden. Write your name on the back of the picture so we can identify the club member.

The members present will vote on their favorite picture in each category and the best overall photo. Gift certificates from Springwater Greenhouse will be awarded in each category.

As an added incentive, we will have a special prize drawing at the meeting. You will get your name in the drawing one time for each photo entered in the contest.

Go through your old pictures and find some winning pictures. The winning photos will be displayed at the Christmas dinner, printed in a future issue of Fins and Friends, and put on our web site.  To see the winners of last years photo contest, click here.

Dear Getting Cold,

You can get pond de-icers that are floating heating elements that keep an area of the pond surface from freezing. This allows toxic gases to escape from the pond as things continue to decompose during the winter as well as provide an "opening" for oxygen to enter the pond. Pond heaters to keep the water warm are expensive to buy and expensive to operate. You can find them in some farm supply centers since they are primarily to thaw the ice in a water tank for cattle.

Your fish should have enough fat on them to make it through the winter. They will be fine if your water depth is at least 18 inches. If you want the company of your fish during the winter, you can bring them inside and put them in an aquarium. Be sure the aquarium is large enough and has an air bubblier. I prefer to give my fish a rest from me in the winter. I don’t sleep in their house and they don’t sleep in mine.

                                                      Polly

To learn more about Polly Ponders and view other Polly Ponders articles, click here.

The successful over-wintering of tropical water lilies is not reliably consistent. For that reason, most sources recommend treating them as annual plants and discarding them at the end of the season. However, it is not impossible to over-winter these plants.

An easy method of wintering tropical lilies is to remove the lily from its pot and hose the tuber free of all soil. Cut off all leaves and excess roots. Cover the tuber in a pot of pea gravel and return the pot to the pool bottom where it will remain free of freezing. In the spring, the small tubers that formed at the base of the main crown can be repotted and set in the pool once the water temperature has warmed to 70°F.

Another method of variable success is to place the clean and trimmed tubers in airtight plastic bags of damp, but not wet, sand. If the sand is too wet, the tubers will rot. If the sand is allowed to dry out, the tubers will die. The bagged tubers may be stored in the vegetable bin of the refrigerator, where they will remain cool enough to satisfy dormancy requirements yet still avoid fatal freezing. Ed Graves, of Bloomington, Indiana, reports successful wintering of tropicals by storing the potted lilies intact within plastic bags in a dark place indoors. Simply repot and return them to the pond in the warming spring.

If the pool can be heated to a constant 55-60°F, the tropical lilies may be left in the pool. Cover the pool with a plastic tent to prevent frost damage to the leaves. Lilies maintained under these conditions will stop blooming and experience a partial or full dormancy, depending upon variety. If foliage remains on the plant, it will usually be reduced in size. The lilies should not be fertilized during this period. Pool heaters have too low a turn-on point for the successful wintering of tropical lilies in the pool. Such heaters are used only for maintaining a small area free of ice.

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