Tag Archives: ice

Water Outflow Matters to Keep a Pond Clean

Ponds can look like a mucky mess if you do not maintain the pond’ outflow pipes. If your pond has dark water and smells then the issue might be your water outflow.

 

Whether it’s a spillway, a sluice gate, or a pipe, your pond’s outlet must be durable enough to funnel pond overflow year-round as well as withstand damage done by winter frost and ice.

 

Pipes sticking out of pond beds can look ugly so many homeowners create a spill way through landscaping. Natural spillways eliminate pipe costs and risks of leakage.

 

The simplest pond outlet is a natural earth spillway. It may be prone to erosion, but usually this is overcome with stone, ledge, or other reinforcing material. If your pond is flooding, consider using a large rock or ledge made of rock or wood to prevent the erosion process.  You can also build one of concrete but often concrete will crack in the winter or develop leaks. Upkeep is very necessary for a landscaped pond opt always look good so if this is not something you can figure out yourself you might be dealing with a lot of pond maintenance all the time.

 

As with your inflow pipes make sure that leaves and other debris don’t clog the outflow channel. Sometimes a spillway will draw floating leaves and debris to the outlet, where it must be skimmed or regularly of raked out.  Even the wind can blow leaves into the outlet and suddenly you have a flooded back yard.

 

Ponds are usually piped through either a horizontal or slightly tilted overflow, or through what’s called a trickle tube (also known as a drop inlet). A horizontal pipe is relatively simple to install just a foot or so below shore level, with a slight downward tilt. Pipes are often used in embankment ponds because they offer no-erosion overflow as well as the option of attaching a drain for repairs and clean-outs.

 

During spring, the ground beneath the pipe can erode and can drain the pond, damaging the embankments in the process. One remedy for this is to attach what is called an anti-seep collar to your outflow pipes. The collars may be plastic, steel, or concrete.  Usually tar is used to seal the seam.

 

A small leak or modest amount of erosion round a horizontal pipe should not be difficult to fix by yourself.  Sometimes laying a stone or a log over the leak and tamping down the earth around it solves the problem.

Taking Care of Your Pond Through the Fall and Winter

There is a tendency to think that there is nothing much to do to your outdoor pond in the winter and that you cannot spruce it up or make it look better.  Your pond does not have to have a dormant, unattractive phase until the sun shines. There are things you can do to maintain it and enhance it so that it is nice to visit all year round.

 

Leaf netting is a pond owner’s best friend.  Before the leaves fall in the autumn cover the entire pond with leaf netting. It is much easier to keep the leaves out than to remove them after they fall into the pond.  Do this early and you will also save your pond from looking like a disaster area in the Spring.

 

Remove tropical or annual plants from the pond as they will decay and pollute the water.  This will leav you looking at a mucky mess all winter and it is just not necessary. It is also not good to leave leaves in the pond with any wintering fish and if there is a lot of plant matter settling to the bottom of the pond then it can actually raise pond levels and flood your yard.

 

This is a good time to divide some types of aquatic plants (waterlilies and iris) and place them back in the pond.  It is not necessary to wait until Spring.  You can also cut back the foliage on hardy perennial plants and lower the pots they grow in to the bottom of the pond.

 

Your cue to start winterizing the pond is when the temperature drops to forty degress Fahrenheit. This means it is time to turn off the pump for the winter. If you have fish turn down the water flow on the pump. Keeping the water flowing through your biological filter allows the bacteria to live therefore ensuring good water quality when you increase the pump’s water flow early in the spring.

 

You can add a floating de-icer to keep an area free of ice. This opening is necessary during periods of ice cover to allow an exchange of gases throughout the pond that it does not become stagnant.

 

If you like, plant Water Hawthorns, which are a mainstay in Japanese ponds. This gorgeous plant blooms through the ice. They are an opposite growing cycle to most plants and grow and bloom fall through spring and go dormant in the summer.  They help keep the water oxygenated throughout the cold winter months.