Tag Archives: yard

An Animal-Free Pond is Cleaner

If your pond seems to be missing fish, then there is a good chance that something wild is feeding at it’s edges.  This is not only hazardous to your animals, the feces, feathers and other things that stray animals leave behind can be odorous, toxic and turn your pond into a slimy mess.  Furthermore it is not fun to be retrieving the dead body of smaller furry animal from the bottom of a pond where it might have slipped and fell.

 

One of the most common predators of our fish is the heron. The most common sight, especially in the southern United States is the Great Blue Heron that stands about four feet tall and has a six-foot wingspan. These birds primarily feed on fish and frogs. ). There are different species of herons scattered around the country, but the most seen around the pond is the Great Blue Heron.

 

One way to discourage herons from visiting your pond is to use a decoy of a fake heron.  As herons don’t like to feed on another heron’s turf, they will respect the fake heron’s feeding territory and stay away.

 

Leaf netting, a scarecrow, artificial and electric fencing (not really recommended but apparently effective) also can keep these clever bird away and also discourage as smaller furry animals like raccoons and foxes from feasting at your waters.

 

Leaf netting should be placed over the pond over the fall and winter to keep hungry birds from feeding and eliminating near the pond.

 

You can use a sprinkler alarm like the Scarecrow.  This is a sprinkler with a motion sensor that only activates when animals are near. When a heron, or anything else, crosses its path, it emits a burst of water, frightening away the birds.  However, the Scarecrow may not deter birds that swoop down to feed such as owls, seagulls and kingfishers.

 

The electric fence can be installed around the perimeter of the pond, giving a small jolt to any creature that decides to venture to the pond as well.

 

Raccoons are the most common visitors to residential ponds. As raccoons are nocturnal creatures, they tend to creep into your yard and swipe your fish at night. One way of dealing with this is to call your local animal control that can deal with the raccoons in a humane fashion by releasing them into the wild.

Do not be afraid to get professional help if the problem is out of control.

Clean Inflow Ensures a Sparkling Pond

When operating properly, a pond will have good water volume and adequate exchange, or overflow, to ensure against stagnation. When the inflow goes awry, a pond will have either too much water or too little, and become dark.  Suddenly you find yourself constantly cleaning a muddy yard and the pond smells.

 

The most common problem with water inflow is lack of sufficient water to sustain pond level. Sometimes, heat or drought causes this problem. Most of the time though it is because the pond was not built so that it was level in the first place. Leaking can also be caused by cracks in the outdoor ponds concrete walls and plastic liners.

 

Since it’s easier to add water than to unearth, resituate and then repair a leaky basin, finding a solution for a pond that seems to have low water level usually begins with looking for a way to supply a supplementary water source. Even if the pond does leak, a fresh source of water may help the pond look cleaner.

 

However, before you consider adding a supplementary water source your best course of action is to make sure that your existing inflow pipes are not just clogged or cut off.  They get clogged with silt or debris.  Evidence that this is the culprit is soaked water or a wet patch around the surface edges of the ground.

 

Your inflow pipes can also crack or burst if they freeze during the winter. A pipe buried below frost line will run in cold weather, as long as the pickup source doesn’t dry up or freeze.  This is why most landscape architecture technologists recommend using PVC pipe. It does not tend to expand or contract like copper piping or crack like certain types of plastic pipes.

 

You can save yourself a lot of maintenance in general by making sure that your inflow pipes have a direct path to the pond. The less elbows, twists and dips that the water has to flow through, the less likely it is to become clogged.

 

If the problem is silt, you might try building a small silt basin (dug into the pool) just upstream of the pond to catch silt before it reaches the pond. This pocket can be cleaned out as needed, by hand or machine, without disturbing the pond.

 

If no supplementary stream or well is available, pond owners sometimes cut drainage ditches in the watershed above the pond. The ditches are usually filled with stone over perforated plastic pipe.

 

If your pond is located in a wet damp hollow you may have not choice to relocate it. You also may have built your pond just below some kind of watershed, which also might be cascading toxins from the earth into your pond as well. This can definitely result in the loss of your precious koi. Depending how much of the flooding in your pond s caused by seepage beneath the your only choice in this situation might be to relocate the pond!