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Post by rowanberry on Jul 12, 2016 19:55:40 GMT
I don't know if it is because of the weather or not, but some of the plants that did really well over the past two years look terrible this year. The Water Plantain and the Marsh Marigold are having a hard time of it- something has chewed the plantain to pieces- down to the stems! and the Marsh Marigold has simply lain down in the water and near-enough expired. I am presuming it's the slugs doing the damage, but it's sad seeing them so bedraggled. They might be root-bound, so if we get a few days of nice weather  (ha!) I might pull out the pond baskets and redo them. The strange thing is that the water soldiers that came back to excess last year have vanished... only one tried to emerge and it died, too. I hope it's not the water quality... the tadpoles seem to be ok. The hornwort is flourishing, at least- as is the mare's tail. |
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Post by aeshna5 on Jul 13, 2016 4:41:15 GMT
I've never managed to successfully grow Water Plantains as they've always been attacked by molluscs, but never had problems with Marsh Marigolds which are prolific in my pond.
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Post by ayjay on Jul 13, 2016 13:38:25 GMT
Unusual for Marsh Marigolds to struggle if they've got water and sunlight.
Water Soldier is a strange plant when it's grown where it doesn't want to be, I had some a few years ago which virtually took over the pond after about three or four years and then just disappeared.
I don't think it's so much a question of water quality but water chemistry, it needs the ph (or whatever) to be just right. I certainly didn't suffer a loss of fish or other living things in the pond when the Water Soldier disappeared.
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Post by rowanberry on Jul 13, 2016 21:05:31 GMT
Both did really well for several years, so that's why I wondered... the water soldiers I'm not too concerned about, because they nearly took over the pond last summer and I was having second thoughts about putting them in.
I suppose plants do come and go eventually...the watercress is still doing ok, and the mare's tail is doing a bit TOO well. It's just one of those things, I suppose.
Thanks!
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Post by kentyeti on Jul 18, 2016 8:21:04 GMT
My marsh marigolds did very well around my mini pond. But the other plants surrounding the pond have almost all died off. They were mainly Creeping Jenny and water forget-me-nots, I think! So, to cover up the pond edges (it's a black dog bath!,) I just put loads of old grass seed from a packet in the shed around the rocks on the pond edge. Brilliant, loads of grass now covering the edges and very quick to grow as my pond is self watering for it's edges: the local Startlings do that for me.
In the pond I think it is the oxygenating plants that have been growing at an incredible pace: I have to keep taking loads out, or that is all that would be in there. I'll take a photo for here and can get an ID on what it actually is.
Cheers,
Bryan
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Post by rowanberry on Jul 18, 2016 19:46:11 GMT
I took out the Marsh Marigold and the Water Plantain a few days ago... to be honest, it was too small of a pond for all the plants I put in it, (newbie's over-enthusiasm, I guess  The hornwort has gone a bit mad, and I'm hoping that the Fringed Water Lily survives- at the moment it's doing ok. The Creeping Jenny decided to leave the pond entirely- it rooted itself in the slope running down from the pond and now it's sprawled to cover the shady side around the birdbath...it and the Brooklime have a competition going to see who can push the other out. (At the moment Jenny is winning.) The plant around the pond that doing the best is the Baby's Tears, ( Soleirolia soleirolii) give that stuff a damp partially shady spot and it loves it. It grows thicker every year, and it's turning into a thick green cushion. It's growing over the low wall around the pond, and is now making its way across the paving stones on the path. I've got an arrangement of stones where I've planted it, and I have to get a pair of scissors and give it a trim every so often, else it would cover them over completely. |
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(ha!) I might pull out the pond baskets and redo them.
