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Hi there, great thread! I am really interested in exploring this also and in particular, which plants can survive the winter outside. I grow the following in my ponds; Sagittaria subulata, Potamogeton gayi, Myriophyllum ' Red Stem', Vallisneria spiralis and giant Vallis. All have overwintered...

Paolo, you are the IT man, I only have a laptop... I think you need a pond!

Thank you Darrel 😊

Hi all, I was looking at some recent pictures of the pond in the middle of my water garden and remembered this old post from a couple of years ago; At the time, people here were thinking it could be either Fool's Watercress or Lesser Water-parsnip, as both look so similar, eg; Well, as...

Thank you all so much for your kind words! Much appreciated, really. Here is the link to the show on iplayer. My garden is about 37 mins into the episode; www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001n4cy Let's organise a UKAPS visit!

Hi all! Just to let you know, my water garden will feature on BBC Gardeners' World tonight! BBC 2 at 9pm. It will be available on BBC iPlayer after 😀👋👋

Sorry I have been absent for a while but after reading your super-kind message, I felt a quick response would be appropriate. It has been another busy year in the water garden. I built a new path at the back, with new 'water meadow' style planting area in between the new path and the back pond...

Thank you for the kind words Rose. Your tank is looking really good! So nice to see pond plants presented in this different way, so intermingled. I was also wondering whether this is maybe more a temperate tank than a pond tank? By pond tank, are you aiming to capture the essence of a still amd...

Yes! Agree, looking forward to that FTS of the tank in clear water👍🏼. Also really looking forward to seeing your sticklebacks in due course

Really love this. And you have a great selection of plants in there. And SO MANY different types! Almost as many as I have in my ponds😂. Looking forward to seeing this when the water clears up. Have you thought of a 'water lilly' type plant? I can give you some Nymphoides peltata to try out...

Today, I am posting a bit about blanketweed and algae. There is blanket weed in most of my ponds. I have found over the years that blanket weed comes in different forms and stages. Most of the blanket weed I have at the moment is at the stage of where it starts to die off and float (see pic...

Thank you Courtney:):) That is so nice of you to say, and so funny. Thank you Ginkgo!!!

I have giant Vallis (V. Americana) in my ponds all year round and have grown them in tubs outside for many years. They grow long leaves over the summer and in winter become much smaller. They have not really grown since the winter, so like @zozo suggests, it would be good to get a variety of...

Thanks @mort 🙋🏽‍♂️ That's good to hear (aside from the blackbirds!). That sounds realy great! it is so inspiring to look at planting communities in the wild. I did consider Persicaria bisorta and agree with you that it would look great and match existing planting. In the end, I went for...

To bring this blog up to date, in this post I will share a few pics to show how the wetland garden progressed through both the autumn and the winter months. Throughout autumn, Sanguisorba 'Blackthorn' was a great addition to the water garden. Its flowers and seedheads provided interest until...

Cheers Courtney!! I planted my Elodea in baskets with clay topsoil and placed them at the bottom of my ponds (80cm depth). I read the other day in one of my Ada Hofman reference books that in her experience, Elodea does better on a shallow marginal pond shelf and that if it is planted deeper...

Thank you @Courtneybst @LondonDragon @NatalieHurrell @Tim Harrison for the interest! The water garden peaked late summer, around September, but autumn was good also. The picture above was taking in early November. Lots of yellow and golden colours as you can see. I will try to bring the blog...

I have kept Aphanius mentho outside in small tubs for years. Easy to keep and they breed well. Same for Macropodus ocellatus, roundtail paradise fish, if you can get hold of them. Both can be kept outdoors year round and dont mind the tubs heating up a lot in the sun during summer.

I also have Fundulus julisia in one of my ponds. They are kept outside all year round and breed well. I used to keep them in tubs for many years - see link in my journal for a bit more info on how I kept them and the Aphanius and Macropodus. Like Aphanius, Fundulus also prefer harder water. My...

That's where I originally got my Aphanius mentho, about 6 or 7 years ago. The West London BKA usually hold their auctions in this place. Really worth going to if you are interested in killis. Great selection at great prices, plus plenty of people on hand to offer advice

Your indoor and outdoor pico ponds look fab. I am really looking forward to seeing you apply your aquascaping skills to your new pond. Exciting!!! Good luck and I am following with great interest👍🏼 Andre

Fantastic project Tyko, I look forward to following this. If you can get hold of them, Aphanius mentho or Macropodus ocellatus can both handle freezing temperatures and hot summers. I have kept both in tubs outside all year round for many years. These tubs heat up quickly in the summer sun and...

So much work going on behind the scenes🙏

Amazing, Paulo, that sounds like a huge undertaking. Well done and thank you for all the work involved :)

Hi Paolo and all, I received emails from Photobucket to say I need to start paying ($60/year!) to keep my photos. Apart from paying, or re-uploading all the pictures, I don't suppose there is anything that can be done by UKAPS to save content on this site? I have my old thread (giant tank for...

The variegated Norfolk reed growing in tubs with water are doing ok, although they have not gained the height I was hoping they would:

Thanks Courtney. I agree, the colour is so striking: I will share a few more pics as a quick update. Scirpus tabernaemontani 'Albescens' is doing well in the back pond and looks good surrounded by Selinum wallichianum:

I found found an interesting factsheet about Stonewort (Chara) by the Freshwater Habitats Trust. It backs up what you said about them preferring mineral substrates like sand, gravel or clay dislike silt. I am going to try taking a cutting and put it in some sand and see what happens. Great to...

Hi Mort. It is Helianthus salicifolius, a perennial sunflower. I agree with you, it looks great near a pond. It does tend to topple over a bit this time of the year when it is in flower but that can add to the drama and add to the wild look it creates (or it disappears or blocks pathways which...

Hi Tyko, thank you so much for kind words and sharing your experiences of witnessing Chara growing in wild (snorkeling in Sweden sounds great!). I will try to keep it from getting overgrown, as you suggest. Today I had another look and cleared some Elodea out of the way. The Chara is actually...

Lovely tank, so natural looking. Really like all that space under the wood. It feels like most of the tank space is below the wood. The apistos are gorgeous. Its looking great

I came across something interesting growing in the pond at the back. I was going to ask for an ID on here but by co-incidence I just saw someone on Facebook posting the same question with a very similar looking plant. It appears that this is not a plant but an algae (!) called Chara. I found...

Thank you so much J-Bonham👍🏼👍🏼 It is such a blessing to literally have this on my doorstep but you are so right, that happens to me all the time - taking just a quick look at something ending up lasting so much longer! I do not miss the lawn. The stupid thing is though that after going all out...

Great project and taking up minimal space! I look forward to seeing the vase flourish👍🏼

Thank you Natalie! I agree with you. Whatever the surroundings, the inside of any pond can be just as fascinating. Before I had my own space to build these ponds, I made do with large plastic tubs as mini ponds and still spent many hours each week working on them and enjoying the nature within...

Thank you so much Ady. I do spend many hours most days out there. For ages now, it has felt the garden is 95% ready but the final 5% is never ending. I have oiled the curved decking pathway and the decking over the large pond at the back. Still need to do the decking near the house and the...

Nice! Like your lilies. Always prefer the simple white flowering ones👍🏼

So your water soldiers are out already... Competition (or lack of) for nutrients and/or allelopathy may well be one of the reasons then Another great theory to keep an eye on! It has been a very wet summer as well. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts. One more observation from me. I just...

Thank you Mort and Darrel for your input🤗. I will place the P. amphibia a bit deeper then (and good to hear Darrel you think it is the right plant) Interesting yours are still below the surface ss well. Maybe just need to be more patient, although in a few ponds they are turning to mush. Could...

Thanks Steve! I have a couple of questions. Does anyone know about Stratiodes? As mentioned, they do not seem to be doing very well. I doubt there is much I can do about it but it would be interesting to hear your thoughts. I am starting to wonder about Persicaria amphibia, planted here in...

Thank you all so much! It is really incredible how much the plants have grown.

Thanks Michael for sharing the pics. That is such a great set up. So well thought through. It must all really help to minimise any dripping on the floor or cupboard unit when you are working on the tank 👍🏼👍🏼. Love the depth of the tank as well...

Nice!! I like how you have a mini version indoors! Will be watching very closely to see how Imperata Cylindrica performs in water. I was going to use it around my ponds as it has the look of a plant which might grow in a wetland. Now I see you using it in water🙌

I have been extremely lucky with the weather. It has been raining so often, and during most weeks since the plants went in, so I have had to water very little, which has been a great help. And they are growing so fast! The Lythrum (purple loosestrife) are providing most of the colour at the...

Congratulations! Well done Tim and all.

Absolutely beautiful Michael, congratulations! The tank and layout look fabulous but I really love how its has been built into the wall. Would be great to see an update in due course showing the wall again. Do you have to be very careful with water dripping down the wood or does the wood have...

Hi Wolf, I think that's Sagittaria. I did the same, in spring I lowered a basket to 80cm hoping to create an submerged version of the plant but it still managed to send short leaves and flowers to the surface! Nice pond, looks like a great wildlife habitat. Which frogs do you get in there?

Thanks for the suggestions Gill. Did you keep threadfin rainbows outdoors all year round? I posted this earlier in the thread, in case the info in the link is of interest to you; In addition, I researched Dutch and German pond forums years ago to see what fish people had successfully tried...

I am sure they still think I am a bit obsessed which of course I totally am. The front of the house is a drive and still has hundreds of plants in pots which need sorting out. But at least this madman now has something to show for his sins. When they see my garden - and many have - they are...

No problem Gill. Great recommendations, thank you. I have looked into all of these. I would love to have Pumpkinseed Sunfish but this is not allowed here for understandable reasons. The pond closest to the house has Fundulus julisia. The second pond has Aphanius mentho and the third pond has...

Thanks Marcel. Right now, one of my favourite aspects is the Butomus growing alongside the Phragmites and Lythrum which does evoke memories of Dutch ditches and 'polder' landscape we both grew up around. Thanks guys😆. I went all out and I do feel very lucky with the result so far. I had not...

At the start of this journal, I shared this picture of a small preformed pond I dug in three years ago and said that I hoped the pond and planting around it would be a template for how the garden would look one day: The pond is still there, hidden between the flowering Lythrum in the picture...

My main focus over the last couple of weeks has been catching up with the pond plants which have been sitting in crates in the ponds waiting to be planted up. The ones I had already planted are establishing themselves and as more are going in, the marginal plants are really coming into play...

That page does looks interesting! It might work then, if that info is correct and they are not confusing it with another species. Our winters also tend to be a lot milder than the German winters referred to in the article. I hope you manageto breed them this summer. Good luck and I look forward...

Great project! Will be following with interest to see how the plants and fish get on. Not sure of spechtii can handle our long cold winters, even if parts of the pond do not go below 5C because of the heater. They come from northern Vietnam as you probably know. WCC absolutely no problem! Heard...

Yes, indeed, that is Potentilla palustris. Thank you for introducing me to this plant! It is starting to take off with runners climbing over the wood and making their way onto land, which is really great: I have it growing in several ponds. I have limescale on the leaves of both Potamogetons...

Wow, what an honour, thank you🙏. I hope to keep the updates coming and share my learning as the project progresses. Thank you Tim. I did order a lot of plants but it actually worked out far more economical to do a large order on wholesale prices. I still have to plant into pond baskets a range...

I have been planting almost every day since my last update. While I still could, I dug in one final tub to add the collection (ten sunken tubs in total now) to maximise the amount of Phragmites I can grow outside of the ponds. The thread algae is still an issue but I have been weeding it our...

Stunning photographs. Plants and fish look spectacular!

Thanks so much Tim, Shangman and Mort!:thumbup: So it was! I just amended and corrected above. I will definitely think a bit more about connecting the drain pipe from the roof to some of the ponds.

Very interesting Mort! Do you have any pictures? I am trying to imagine how an air pump can create enough movement across a pond. This evening I cleared thread algae from the pond next to the patio and the middle pond (with a rake). I removed algae about two weeks ago, so this was more about...

All the pond edges are at the same level, except for the pond bordering the patio, which is a bit lower. As I mentioned, it could be a good way to make sure water levels at either side of walkways remain at the same level, to keep up the illusion the wooden paths are built over larger stretches...

I might try that, especially where I extended the big pond at the back. The board walk there hides where both ponds meet. As the extension is a lot smaller than the large pond, and will have a far higher proportion of reeds and marginal plants growing in there, it might be possible that water...

Thanks Marcel! It looks like the decking walkways go over the ponds but it was far easier to just construct separate ponds. There are six in total. One advantage is that this does help keep the fish separate. Three ponds contain fish. Just have to remember not to move plants from one pond to...

Thank you Tim, Shangman and Paolo. UKAPS members most welcome! I would be more than happy to hosts any visits. Marcel, that looks great! Thanks for all that information. Will definitely try to grow marsh fern on the tree stump. Growing ferns on wood... did not think I would be doing that again...

Thanks all! Sounds interesting, I should try some water cress. I still have a lot of thread algae. First I thought I would just leave it, in order to minimise losing newt eggs which would inevitably be included among the Elodea which would come out with the thread algae. I was also too busy...

A brief update. I am still seeing a lot of newts in all the ponds. A pair of crows have nested in a tree next door and they visit many times each day. They remind me a bit of what I used to do as a child with a net. They walk along the water side, tracing the contours of all the ponds and...

Thank you Maf. I am keen to try Nuphar lutea for their submersed leaves, which are larger and more wavy than the floating ones. They are quite a common sight in canals in many old Dutch city centres where the underwater leaves make a great display, resembling crops of lettuce. Here are some...

Some of the Elodea growing near the surface looks super healthy with a dark, almost purplish colour whereas a lot of the Elodea elsewhere is pale, thin and all covered with blanket weed. I have a few bowls in the back ponds planted up with Nuphar lutea. I had planted Elodea around the edges of...

Thanks Tim and Darrel! I am really excited after being out around the ponds this afternoon. I can see the fish much better than last year when they were in the tub. I did release them into the ponds at the end of last summer but it might have taken them a while to gain confidence but today with...

Thanks Darrel for the suggestions. I grow variegated Phragmites in tubs on my patio (you may be able to see them in a pic earlier in the thread) and they do not grow much larger than this when in pond baskets. probably because they did not get any extra feed and they were not in a pond with...

Thanks Mort, I won't bother fertilising the Elodea baskets then. That is what I was thinking also - not enough active plant mass. So in my case, I did have plenty of plants in there (masses of Elodea), so either the Elodea is not actively growing this time of the year or they are not...

Great to see the ponds coming to life again. I have spotted newts in all of the ponds and frog spawn has started hatching today. There is a lot of blanket weed in all the ponds. I need to get more marginal plants in there and more plants which grow earlier in the season, including...

Thank you Ceg. That's great to know!

Thank you Marcel, that is very useful information. I will go with the second option as those tabs are so much cheaper, even though they seem formulated esp more for flowering plants. My water lilies will appreciate them the most then. I really need to get some Potentilla palustris... I have...

Thanks Ceg. What about the difference between the 2 Osmocote products? Do you think I can go for the cheaper one and not worry about the NPK balance?

And a second question, for a pond basket measuring 24x24x14cm (around 8L), how many tabs should I insert?

Hi there, I am looking into using Osmocote slow release fertiliser tabs for existing pond plants in baskets. These would include submerged aquatic plants like giant Vallis as well as a range of marginal plants. I know the cheapest way would be to add loose fertiliser like Gro More or Vitax Q4...

On the subject of tubs, now that I am scaling down the number of tubs I am going to be using for outdoor fish breeding, I will briefly share how I will be utilising them in this new project. I have dug in a number of large tubs along a length of the board walk. The idea is to plant reeds...

Likewise, looking forward to seeing this develop. Subscribed!

Thank you Castle. I loved that tank but it sadly no longer exists. I moved house a few years ago and the focus of my hobby changed to keeping killis and other temperate/ subtropical fish outside in tubs and mini ponds. You can read more about that here if you are interested.

I was able to buy six large tubs through Ebay but also added a number of disused loft tanks/ cold water tanks to the collection which I found in skips over the years. The larger loft tanks are the same size (50 gallons). Depending on where you live, you may come across them in skips outside...

Let me share a very brief update on progress with the pathway and decking. Work on this part of the project started in September, after the ponds were constructed. Here are some pictures of my builders in action. I realised I needed more access to the ponds for maintenance and so I...

Thank you Mort and Tim! I found this resource quite useful: a list of fish suitable for outdoors (not all of them all-year round) with indicative lower temperature tolerance ranges compiled by Martin Tversted from Denmark. Especially if you are prepared to take them indoors over winter, the...

My fishkeeping hobby used to be all about killifish in aquariums. At an auction years ago, I bought some Aphanius mentho which had been bred outside in tubs over the summer. This got me interested and I began researching various forums (mainly Dutch and German) and finding out about people’s...

Hi there. Sorry but I won't be able to help. This was 7.5 years ago and I can't remember what happened in the end! Hope you manage to sort it out...

Beautiful pond Wolf. You have got so much going on there. Jealous of the green frogs, wish we had them over here/ this part of UK. Is the Lilaeopsis brasiliensis in a pond basket? What substrate do you use for your marginals?

Thank you both! They do look similar. Hopefully we will find out next year when they flower. Just reading up on them, and apparently both can grow submerged as well.

Along the edges of the lake where collected some of my plants, I found this marginal, which I quite liked the look of. I planted it a couple of baskets to try out. Does anyone know what it might be? Its pretty vigorous from the look of it.

Thanks MWood for sharing the info. Love to see those pond tubs. Really like the plants growing on your wall behind as well. I am certainly going to look out for some H. zosterifolia now and will definitely try it in my ponds. I have had A mentho outside for years, in tubs not much bigger than...

At the start of the journal, I mentioned that I am following (more or less) the pond keeping principles of Ada Hofman who is known in Holland for advocating the use of oxygenating plants instead of filters in order to achieve clear pond water. I will post more another time but one of her basic...

Thanks Darrel, that's really good to know. Stick to Equisetum japonicum then.

Really, Equisetum japonicum in the garden? I did not know that:thumbup: Fantastic, I will definitely add that to the pond&garden list. Thank you for sharing the experience. Do you happen to know it Equisetum is happy with its crown below water? I have read different accounts and if you say it...

I am not planning on using any filtration. The plan is very much lots of plants in there from day one, hopefully with a good enough ratio between deeper water (80cm) and shallower shelves with marginal plants and, above all, a low bio load of fish. Definitely no gold fish, or other fish which...

These both look great Marcel, two more to add to the list of plants suited to either side of the pondliner. I can see why you like Bog pimpernel so much. Definitely going to try that! I am also on the lookout for different plants to use to hide the edges of marginal baskets which stick above...

Great to connect with like minded people and know I am not the only one obsessed then. It can feel that way sometimes :thumbup:🇳🇱 Wow, thank you both for the vote of confidence. I really hope I can pull it off and would love to host your visit.

Much of this project is about the margins. Plants which can grow in boggy conditions but will also thrive in clay soil. Plants that can live with their roots in and out of the water. Aquatic plants that can both live submerged or emersed. Garden - Pond - Aquarium. I find it quite exciting...

Let me write a bit about the construction of the ponds. In terms of the pond size, instead of going for one or two huge ponds, I went for a multitude of smaller sized ones, offering more space for gardening with marginal planting at the edges. I planned the maximum width of the ponds so that...

Great, Wookii and Tim. Looking forward to sharing progress with you. Oh yes... cycling around with a net or fishing rod in one hand and a bucket hung onto the steering wheel... those were the days, Holland was such a great place to grow up. Every now and then when I am back home I do still...

Thanks Darrell for your feedback. I have had this Arundo donax in a pot for about 5 years now. Previous I kept it in one of my tubs, just above water level. It survived but never did that well (only one or two stems and not as tall). This year with all the works going on around the garden, I...