by Carol Bartlett | May 31, 2018 | Gardening Posts
Ponds are great way to attract wildlife to your garden.
Image source: Svetlana Foote
A pond will attract a variety of wildlife into the garden such as frogs, damselflies, dragonflies, water boatman and pond skaters. Many different types of birds will visit for a bath and a dip; I even had a kingfisher dive in for a fish.
But what should you do if your pond looks like a bowl of green soup? The good news is that this can be fixed. Here’s how.
A natural water balance
Don’t despair if your pond looks like pea soup.
Image source: Carol Bartlett
The cause of this greening is algae. Usually a pond is fairly clear over winter until spring arrives and the ecology starts to change. As temperature and sunlight levels increase, the water warms up, blooms of algae appear, and your pond turns green.
For algae to thrive in your pond it needs sun, minerals and nutrients to feed on. The key to maintaining clear water is to create an ecological balance which reduces these elements, in turn, inhibiting the algae.
Reduce sunlight to the pond
Use plants to reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the water.
Image source: Dirk Ott
Cutting down the amount of sun on your pond will make the conditions less suitable for algae. This may seem counterintuitive since most pond plants like a good amount of sun. So to keep algae in check you’ll need to come up with a clever way to reduce the amount of sunlight to the water without shading the plants.
The answer is to cover a good part of the pond’s surface with plants that will act as a shield to the water underneath. Floating plants, submerged plants and water lilies are ideal. You should aim to cover about half of the pond’s surface.
Reduce nutrients in the pond
Scoop any fallen leaves from your pond to reduce nutrients in the water.
Image source: Sinica Kover
Algae feed on the nutrients in your pond, so reducing nutrients in the water will inhibit algae growth. Avoid constructing a pond near deciduous trees and shrubs. When leaves fall into a pond they sink to the bottom, rot down and make the water more nutrient rich. In addition they also release toxins which pollute the water and endanger pond life. If leaves do fall into the pond, it’s best to skim them off with a net and remove.
It may be tempting to use ordinary compost when planting into a pond, but it’s full of nutrients. It’s better to use sterile aquatic compost which is free from peat and nutrients wherever possible.
There is also the thorny issue of whether to introduce fish. Fish are attractive, but they excrete, which adds nutrients to the pond and feeds the algae.
Oxygenate the water
Water Crowfoot is a good oxygenating plant.
Image source: Zoltan Major
Algae grows fast and can rapidly deplete the water of oxygen. It’s important to oxygenate the water to support the plants and wildlife which in turn keep the water clear. Submerged oxygenating plants are invaluable to the natural balance of the pond. Try things like ranunculus aquatilis (water crowfoot), hottonia palustris (water violet), potamogeton crispus (curly pondweed), and myriophyllum verticillatum (milfoil). They will also help support the algae-eating animals, such as water snails and tadpoles.
Most oxygenating plants grow well, but depending on your local conditions, you may have to try several to establish which grow best. Most are easy to control so they shouldn’t get out of hand. However, do bear in mind that some oxygenating plants are invasive. Things like parrots feather, have the potential to escape and overwhelm native plants.
A fountain or a waterfall makes a lovely water feature. They look good and serve a practical purpose – adding more oxygen to the water. Installing a waterfall or fountain will require a pump which can be combined with a filter and a UV clarifier. These also help to keep the water clearer.
If planting water lilies, remember that they don’t like being splashed, so arrange fountains accordingly.
Other tips to reduce algae in a pond
This pond has a concealed pump and filter system.
Image source: Del Boy
It’s part of the natural pond cycle that early in the season there will be an algae bloom, when the water first warms up. Then the oxygenating plants start to work, the vegetation grows and the lily pads will spread over the pond surface. Within a week or two the green bloom fades and the water becomes clear. The period of green should be limited to a couple of weeks early in the season. If it continues beyond a few weeks, here are some other things to bear in mind.
The size of a pond can affect its natural balance. A larger pond will maintain its natural balance more easily while small, shallow, under-planted ponds will heat up faster and suffer more from algae.
I have found barley straw effective, although it doesn’t seem to work for everyone. The straw decomposes in the water inhibiting the growth of algae.
A pond filter can be very helpful to remove algae. If you have a significant number of fish, a filter is essential to maintain good quality water and to ensure that fish excreta doesn’t feed the algae. It is important to buy the right size of filter for the volume of water (determined by the size and depth of the pond), and number of fish to be stocked in the pond. Specialist suppliers offer advice on this.
There are chemicals which can be added to the water, but I’m not happy to add them to a pond which is full of wildlife. It is a matter of personal choice. The sustainable way forward is to build up the ecological balance in the pond so that it naturally takes away the algae.
With a little effort, it is possible to have an algae free pond. Apart from the early spring bloom, algae is not inevitable as long as you have a few tricks up your sleeve to keep it at bay.
Carol Bartlett, The Sunday Gardener, lives in the north of England where she has created a diverse garden including wildflowers, natural areas, herbaceous borders, a wildlife pond, trees and wetland plants, along with a vegetable plot. She has been gardening, reading, researching and photographing plants for over twenty years and her website is a popular resource for gardeners young and old.
by Nic Wilson | May 24, 2018 | Gardening Posts
This ornamental garden consists of flowers and leafy vegetables.
Image: Arjuna Kodisinghe
Picking your own fruit, vegetables and herbs is one of the highlights of the gardening year, but you don’t have to turn your garden into an allotment in order to grow and harvest your own food. There are many ways to grow crops within an ornamental framework, so that your garden – whatever its size – can be a beautiful and productive space.
Add An Edible Hedge
Rosemary hedges can be left natural or kept low and trimmed neatly.
Image source: Shutterstock
Native edible hedges create valuable habitats for wildlife and provide a range of crops like cherry plums, hazelnuts, sloes, elderberries and rosehips. Even if you don’t have room for a large hedge you can try edging beds and borders with step-over apple trees which will create low boundaries and provide fruit within the first few years.
Rosemary and lavender can be used as edible hedging to give definition to different areas of the garden. My narrow front garden is trisected by a rosemary hedge (Rosmarinus officinalis) to create three distinct gravel planting areas. In the winter the hedge provides evergreen structure and during the summer months, perennials fill the space and the hedge all but disappears beneath a colourful meadow. We use the rosemary leaves in soups, stews, on the barbecue and to garnish homemade chips.
If you like the idea of a low edible hedge with a box-like appearance, you could try growing a myrtle relative – the Chilean guava (Ugni molinae). This evergreen shrub likes a sheltered spot in acid soil and is hardy down to around -10°C . It has small dark green leaves which develop a deep red autumn colour and has deliciously fragrant white bell flowers in summer, followed by small red berries. Not only are the berries one of the tastiest fruits in our garden (they were Queen Victoria’s favourite fruit), they also ripen in October offering fresh flavour at a time when all the other fruit has passed into winter hibernation.
Plant Attractive Crops in Containers
A row of contemporary pots planted with cavolo nero would make a striking statement.
Image source: Ruud Morijn Photographer
We tend to focus on the productivity and taste of our fruit and vegetables, but many also have ornamental flowers and foliage which can add beauty to a garden. Blueberries thrive in pots and if your soil is alkaline like mine, growing blueberries in containers is a practical way to grow this acid-loving shrub. In addition to their delicious, healthy fruits, blueberries have delicate white flowers in late spring and the foliage turns a rich red in autumn, meaning this is a plant which combines beauty and utility throughout the seasons.
Colourful vegetables like Swiss chard ‘Bright Lights’, purple kohl rabi ‘Kolibri’ and cavolo nero will grow well in containers – you can grow one type repeated in individual contemporary pots for the minimalist look or add them all to one large pot with an underplanting of thyme or edible annual flowers, for a more cottage garden effect.
Grow Edible Annual Flowers
Most annuals are easy to grow and fit well into small spaces in borders, containers and vegetable beds. Nothing looks and tastes better on hot summer days than a fresh salad decorated with edible petals. One of our favourite edible flowers is the nasturtium with its peppery leaves and seed pods which we pickle as an alternative to capers. We grew Nasturtium majus ‘Cream Troika’ last year alongside tumbling tomatoes in hanging baskets – the buttery yellow flowers with red centres trailed lazily over the edges, lasting all through the summer.
English marigold (Calendula officinale) is another easy annual. The flowers range from the vivid orange and yellow ‘Power Daisy Orange/Yellow’ to the muted tones of two of my favourite varieties – ‘Snow Princess’ and ‘Sherbert Fizz’. The petals look appealing in salads, adding a light peppery flavour. Calendula readily self-seeds, so not only will you have edible flowers in the future, but each year brings different colours and shades as the plants readily cross-pollinate.
Disclaimer
The author and publisher take no responsibility for any adverse effects from the use of plants. Not everyone reacts positively to all edible plants or other plant uses. Seek advice from a professional before using a plant for culinary or medicinal uses.
We hope this article has inspired your ornamental-edible planting scheme. If you’re keen to discover more information and advice on growing blueberries, visit our helpful hub page. And if you like the idea of using brightly-coloured stems of chard to bring your borders to life, head to our dedicated page of beetroot and chard-growing information.
Nic Wilson is a writer, garden designer and Garden Media Guilds Awards nominee (Beth Chatto Environmental Award, 2019). She enjoys growing flowers and unusual fruit, vegetables and herbs, and loves to encourage nature into the garden. She blogs at www.dogwooddays.net, and Guardian Country Diarist based in North Hertfordshire.
She works for BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine and her writing has featured in anthologies, journals and magazines including The English Garden, The Garden (RHS Magazine), BBC Wildlife Magazine and the John Clare Society Journal.
by Sonia Mermagen | Nov 25, 2016 | Customer Trial Panel, Expert Update, Exterior design, Flowers, Gardening News, Gardening Posts, inspiration for the garden, Petunia Parade
Fabulous Fuchsia ‘Icing Sugar’ tipped for success in 2017: will this year’s cover outdo last year’s best seller?
T&M will give customers DOUBLE their money back if they don’t agree that this is the best fuchsia they’ve ever grown.
When Paul Hansord, horticultural director of Thompson & Morgan gifts the UK’s largest online plant retailer, saw Petunia ‘Night Sky’ last year, he immediately tipped it for success and featured it on the front cover of T&M’s spring catalogue. Sales of the spectacularly different petunia, which was a world first in flower patterning, exceeded all expectations with over 175,000 plants despatched last season. Retailers commented that they could have sold many, many more plants than stock levels allowed.
This year a fabulous new fuchsia is gracing the cover of Thompson & Morgan’s spring 2017 catalogue, and forecasts suggest that it will be the mail order specialist’s best seller for next season. Paul Hansord says: “I’m so convinced of the performance and flower power of Fuchsia ‘Icing Sugar’ that I’ll give our customers double their money back if they don’t believe that this is the best fuchsia they’ve ever grown!”*
Fuchsia ‘icing Sugar’
Paul’s confidence in Fuchsia ‘Icing Sugar’ is understandable. With its stunning frosted purple and cerise blooms and its compact habit, it is perfect for large patio pots and eye-catching border planting. Thousands of blooms are produced over the summer on a tidy cushion of dense foliage giving gardeners a great value, full season of colour. What also makes this fuchsia so special is that the rich, true fuchsia-pink sepals unfurl to reveal an unusual two-tone, twisting central corolla that has an intriguing frosted sheen to it.
Geoff Stonebanks, gardening writer, blogger and creator/owner of The Driftwood Garden near Lewes in Sussex, trialled ‘Icing Sugar’ for T&M last year and says: “The beautiful new fuchsia, ‘Icing Sugar’, certainly lives up to its name; a delicate and frosted gem.” Geoff added: “As an avid fuchsia lover, this delicate and frosted “Icing Sugar”, on show in my garden for the first time this summer, is utterly stunning.”
Petunia ‘Night Sky’
Petunia ‘Night Sky’ has not, as is often the case after a loud launch and high initial sales, dropped off the best seller list and T&M forecasts the continued success of this very special petunia. Unlike the markings of other varieties, which can be inconsistent, the speckled stars of ‘Night Sky’ are consistent across all the blooms with every flower offering a different astral constellation. When Petunia ‘Night Sky’ was first introduced, some gardeners speculated that the images of had been digitally ‘enhanced’ until they grew the plants and saw the stunning markings for themselves.
Petunias and fuchsias are top of the UK’s list of favourite bedding and container plants and consistently come first in consumer surveys. With Petunia ‘Night Sky’ winning a People’s Choice Competition at Thompson & Morgan’s show garden at Jimmy’s Farm, in Suffolk last summer, there is every hope that Fuchsia ‘Icing Sugar’ will have similar success as T&M’s lead cover item this year. Paul Hansord’s confidence in offering a ‘double your money back’ guarantee would suggest that he is in no doubt that it will be a big hit in gardens this summer.
For information on how to grow fuchsias, go to www.thompson-morgan.com/growfuchsias
*see website for terms and conditions.
Sonia works at Thompson & Morgan in the role of press and communications officer. She is a self-proclaimed ‘reluctant’ gardener and is generally amazed if anything flourishes in her garden. Sonia has a ‘hands off’ approach to gardening and believes that this helps to encourage bees, butterflies and other wildlife. (That’s her excuse anyway!)
by Graham Porter | Nov 24, 2016 | Autumn gardening, Expert Update, Gardening News, Gardening Posts, inspiration for the garden, Vegetables, Windowsill Grower, Winter gardening
Just because we have nearly reached the shortest day does not mean to say that we should only eat sprouts, cabbage and leeks between now and springtime.
With a few small pots of multi-purpose compost, a bright windowsill or cool glasshouse and as little TLC, we can all have a succession of yummy salad leaves to add to our five a day.
Cabbage Chinese ‘Natsuki’ & Leek ‘Autumn Giant 2 – Porvite
Flicking through the 2017 Thompson & Morgan catalogue, you do not have to look very far before you find Spinach ‘Perpetual,’ eaten cooked or raw, and Salad Leaves ‘Speedy Mix’ to give you a quick start. If you fancy growing your own pea shoots (they will need a few days in the dark to get them to start germinating) or spring onion seedlings to lift a posh meal to another level, why not give them a try.
If you like that wonderful peppery flavour that rocket gives, try Wasabi Rocket to spice up a boring lettuce salad. Add some colour to the salad with a few Beetroot ‘Rainbow Beet’ leaves. With a little more heat, up to 15° C and light you might try one or two of the fabulous basil varieties that are listed amongst the herbs. Coriander leaves can also be grown with that little extra TLC.
Lettuce ‘Yugoslavian Red’ & Turnip ‘Oasis’
If you like something unusual, try growing Cabbage Chinese ‘Natsuki’ and throw the leaves into a stir fry.
Check out the pages on Salad leaves for a whole collection of other salad leaves to try. If you have a cool glasshouse (10°C) with a soil bed or similar and a little more patience, why not try growing some white salad Turnip ‘Oasis,’ sown in early January. Harvest from April onwards.
Salad Leaves ‘Speedy Mix’ & Spring Onion ‘Feast’ F1 Hybrid
Remember that all most of these salads need is a bright windowsill, temperatures of between 10 and 12°C. Many are best being grown in shallow pots to avoid excessive use of compost – the plants will only be in the compost for 6 to 8 weeks and so do not need large volumes of compost.
Whichever ones you grow, enjoy your winter salads and look forward to growing more as winter turns to spring.
Graham Porter.
Find salad growing advice and tasty recommendations for the rest of the year at our salad hub page.
I have worked in horticulture for the past 49 years and have become more involved with and concerned about the environmental impact that our profession has had on the world. I am married with 2 grown up children and 4 wonderful grandchildren. My first book, ‘The Yorkshire Organic Gardener’ was published in November 2018. I am Vice Chair of the Chartered Institute of Horticulture’s Young Horticulturist of the Year competition and am also the CIH Northern Branch Regional Organiser for the competition.
Recipient of 2021 RHS Harlow Carr medal for services to horticulture in the North of England.
by Geoff Stonebanks | Oct 25, 2016 | Autumn gardening, Competitions, Customer Trial Panel, Expert Update, Exterior design, Flowers, Gardening News, Gardening Posts, inspiration for the garden, Your Stories
Geoff Stonebanks, one of the customer trial panelists and owner of the multi-award winning garden, Driftwood, in Bishopstone, Sussex, has had a very successful gardening year. He’s just scored a trio of triumphs in 2016.
In the November issue of a national gardening magazine his garden was judged to be a finalist and runner-up in their Garden of the Year Awards 2016 competition, in the small space category. After receiving hundreds of entries nationwide. This, coupled with Geoff and Driftwood’s appearance on the popular Gardeners’ World TV programme, back in September, and the photo shoot in June for an 8-page feature about the garden in the national lifestyle magazine Coast, next summer, has enabled Geoff to have the best year ever, since first opening his garden gate back in 2009. Not to mention of course the £15,000 raised for charity this summer alone bringing the garden total to £76,000. Geoff has been a member of the customer trial panel since 2012 and has trialled over 100 different products in that time. Many of them were on show this summer for the photo shoots and judging.
Verbena bonariensis and pinks
Geoff comments; ” I saw the competition advertised back in May and thought I’d give it a go. All I had to do was submit 8 pictures of the garden and complete a questionnaire answering specific questions, ranging from how I created the garden to the challenges and obstacles I had to overcome.” He went on to say, “I was utterly amazed to find out in late July that it had been shortlisted in the small space category and would be photographed before the final judging.”
When the magazine editor telephoned Geoff to tell him he was the runner-up, she said “Your entry was always a real stand-out and genuinely was knocking on the door for the top prize all the way. It will be such a pleasure to share more pictures of your garden with our readers over the coming months.”
Geoff was interviewed on BBC Sussex recently, along with the editor, who explained to listeners that the competition set out to look for clever solutions and the ability to make something of unique and difficult spaces.
Geoff’s garden with Buddleja ‘Buzz® Magenta.’ Film crew from Gardener’s World
Needless to say, Geoff is thrilled and tells us the magazine will be featuring more of his garden in their April 2017 issue. Not only that, he can now choose up to £250 worth of garden equipment from the competition sponsors catalogue.
Then, back in September the garden was featured in a 6-minute film on Gardeners’ World too. The show had been looking at inspired planting and design in a series of small gardens and spent the day filming in late August. Geoff was able to take the presenter around the garden and talk about the different garden rooms. You can clearly see the T&M Buddleja ‘Buzz® Magenta’ and lilac in the foreground of the picture of Geoff on camera along with the Thompson & Morgan Berberis x ottawensis f. purpurea ‘Superba’ he won for blog of the month earlier in the year, sticking up behind the fig leaves.
Birds eye view of Driftwood garden
Driftwood is set to open 14 times in 2017 and full details can be found at www.driftwoodbysea.co.uk Look out for the feature next summer in Coast magazine too!
So why not make a date to visit and see both the garden and the many Thompson & Morgan plants on show for yourselves. Private visits can also be made for lunch or afternoon tea in the garden.
Geoff Stonebanks
Geoff Stonebanks was very lucky to be able to retire early from 30 years in Royal Mail back in 2004. He had 3 different careers with them first as a caterer, then manager of a financial analysis team and finally as an Employee Relations Manager and Personnel Manager. He sold up and moved with his partner to Bishopstone, near Seaford in East Sussex in 2004 and now spends all his time gardening and fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support. Using his multi award-winning garden, featured on Gardeners’ World on BBC TV and finalist in Gardeners’ World Magazine Garden of the Year 2016, he’s raised £164,500 for various charities in 12 years, £109,000 of that for Macmillan. In his spare time, he is also Publicity Officer for the National Garden Scheme in East & Mid Sussex. In 2023, Geoff was also crowned one of the 500 Coronation Champions.
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