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Blagdon Water Gardens
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
The Balancing act with Plants
Unless you resort to technology or chemicals the only way to keep the water clear in your pool is with plants. The Anglo Aquatic Company proved this the year a couple of years ago at the Hampton Court Flower Show with 'The Swimming Pond'. This was a 7ft deep pond in the middle with a huge planting of a complete range of water plants around the edge and these would be guaranteed to be effective in keeping the water clear for 90 percent of the year. The centre was kept clear of plants so that people could use the water to swim, in which they did. One little girl spent the best part of day in there and said she it was a hundred times better than a chlorinated pool because she would never have been able to stay that long in a chemically cleansed pool. Apparently 'Swimming Ponds' are 'big' in Austria were there over 8,000 of them!
In your own fish pool or wildlife pool, the same applies with plants, but here the most important plants are the oxygenators. The underwater plants that feed the environment with oxygen that is not only essential for the wildlife of the pool but also the bacteria that inhabit the bottom breaking up the muck and detritus that ends up there into nitrates, chemical that can be ingested by the plants as plant food. This is one of the essential cycles of life that makes your pool or pond a completely self sufficient little world. Algae that in profusion cause the green water we have all commonly grown to accept would consume the nitrates eagerly, so what is required is a range of other higher plants that can get to them first.
After the oxygenators there are the lilies and other deep water aquatics that are gross feeders of these nitrates in quantity. They also provide a bit of shade for the pool that discourages the growth of algae, which need sunlight as much as any other plant life. Floating plants too are useful but many of you over in the States and South Africa have 'hit list' of dreaded floating plants, so choose with care. Then there are the marginals. These blend the water garden into the rest of the garden, softening the edges and provide cover for wildlife. Also many of them are amazing at helping keep the water clear although it does tend to be the ones that get out of hand, growth wise. It's a bit like using Hells Angels as bouncers at party, they are great at doing the job until the point they decide 'they're going to party'. The best one, one that actually oxygenates water and absorbs all sorts of toxins, not only the nitrates but including radiation, is the humble common Reed. In the UK it is known as the Norfolk Reed because it has taken over Norfolk and most of Suffolk and most anywhere else it goes in the world as its Latin name testifies Phragmites australis.
The other point that I was making in my talk was that although some of these plants are pretty tough wily old birds which given the light of day just completely take over, in fact virtually any water plant will take over a pool without any competition about, it is by taking a balance of plants from across the spectrum of all these water garden types that helps keep them all under some sort of control.
Peter May
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