Netting the garden pond

Slightly stretchy netting material specifically retailed for the purpose of covering ponds in winter is available as most garden centres and all aquatic stores. Pegs are generally supplied but it may be necessary to employ a few bricks as weights on paving and perhaps timber supports to prevent the net from drooping in the middle into the pond water. I have even used ladders for this purpose.

Netting the pool or pond may be a bit difficult if the marginal plants are still at full height, so this is the time to cut them back. Wildlife and conservation pool owners usually prefer to leave the growth of poolside plants as cover for the wildlife toing and froing. A further quandary for fish keepers is that, although the tall poolside fronds of grasses and reeds waving in the autumn gales look attractive, they are also the perfect cover for herons. There is an acceptable compromise, however, cut the plants back to one third as some of you may have done last month. This is good gardening practice because it means that those plants that were setting seed now divert their energies into food storage for next year. It reduces any risk of disease or over-wintering of pests, but also of course it diminishes the spray of unwanted seed all over the pool and garden. For instance did you know that there are between 175,000 and a quarter of a million viable seeds in your average Cats Tail/Reed Mace/Typha latifolia seed head and every teeny weeny little flower on a Water Plantian produces something like 40 or 50 seeds, which adds up to a quite a few thousand for every inflorescence stem.

With the plants cut back to one third, they make quite useful support and grip for the net.

With the pool dredged and the plants cut back, a cleverly contrived self-supporting wooden framework is laid in place.

The net is laid across and unfolded in situ.

Having been pegged in strategic places along one side

...It can then be stretched across the framework.

The pond is put to bed for winter.

As the temperature starts to approach 10C feed the fish less and less. Koi need only have special high protein winter food or wheat germ. This is much more easy to digest. At 7C cease feeding altogether. They may still take food, by force of habit, but it wont be digested, only sit in their gut for the rest of the winter. Any uneaten food remains a time bomb of pollution ready to be set off in the spring as it begins to warm up, just at the time when the fish are at their lowest ebb.

Back to plants: any frost tender plants need to be rescued. You can plant up water hyacinths into soil and keep them in a frost-free greenhouse. Water Chestnuts and Frogbit need to be saved in their little nut form; particularly important to watch out for if you are having a bit of a cleanout. Any fancy frost tender lilies, like the Lotus, need rescuing too. They need to be stored in moist sterile compost or coir at a temperature of between 5-7C (40-45F) or in sealable plastic bags with a little moisture. If you can provide heat and light and an indoor pond then some varieties will continue to flower well into the autumn months. The minimum temperature required would be 16-18C (60-65F).

Plants like these Lotus at the Crystal Waters garden at the 2000 Hampton Court Flower Show would need to be taken indoors for winter.

If you have seriously been considering building another pool, a waterfall, stream or such like, now is the time to get it done. Plan it and do it in one great swoop and you will have forgotten the pain of it by Christmas and all the evidence of the turmoil will be gone by spring. So what about it? This is the season for sorting. After Christmas, forget it. It all becomes a bit too much effort then until we are kissed by the faint, fair flickers of spring.

THE PLANT OF THE SEASON: The fantastic Schizostylis coccinea may keep flowering into November despite being a native of South Africa.

Schizostylis coccinea