Large or tiny you can make your yard a space of beauty and harmony with a small pond. By employing a little vision and some cash saving techniques you can exhibit a one of a kind focal point that won’t break your bank.

Keeping It Clean

Use an aquarium vacuum that you can buy at any pet store or pet area of a department store. This easy tool is essentially a long hose with a broad based suction head to cover as much area as workable while being comfortable to grasp. This should be completed once a week in the summer months. You will want to put back the water you remove during cleaning.

Add a waterfall or other water airing to keep algae down. A waterfall or aerator adds oxygen to the water which is beneficial if you wish to maintain fish in your pond as well as to restrict algae levels. They also help keep the water circulating and temperature lower to avoid an algae bloom that will make your water green.

Light It Up

Situate lights in strategic locations near the edge of your pool in the plants, rocks, or even beneath the surface of the water. Set the timer to start a few minutes before sunset, and set it to go off a few minutes after your regular bedtime. Using timers will cut the cost of lighting your pond so that the lights are only on throughout the times you are most likely to see them.

Save Money on Water Use

Make use of self contained pond and filter elements so that you only have to put back water once a week when cleaning your pond. Buy the top filter you can pay for and make sure it is the correct size for your pond so that you have to replace grimy water less frequently

Plant Care

Plants can increase visual allure to your pond as well as help keep the water in good condition. Letting plants grow out of control, however, can have the contrary effect as well as letting them acquire mold and mildew. Keep your plants nicely pruned and check on them often.

Chemicals

If your water gets out of hand on you in spite of your best efforts you can utilize chemicals to control algae or other contaminants that can initiate cloudy water. If you have your pond stocked with fish be sure any chemicals are safe for use with living animals. Most pond supply stores only have algaecides and enzyme products that are harmless to use with fish.

Conclusion

A pond is frequently a highlight of any landscape and requires monitoring and maintenance. It can grow to be a hobby of sorts, because after you have one you experience a craving to keep improving it. Stay within your funds and remember to enjoy it. By following the easy ideas mentioned you can handle your pond and realize its anticipated natural and emotional beauty.

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During September, narcissus and many of the small flowering bulbs, such as snowdrop, crocus, grape hyacinth, and so on, should be planted. If you plan to naturalize daffodils, plant the bulbs in drifts. Make the holes at least 5 inches deep with a grub hoe or spade; then place a bulb in each hole, replace the soil and sod, and tamp it down with your feet.

Small bulbs are more easily planted if a light crowbar is used to make the holes. First make all the holes, or all the holes in one section, 6 to 9 inches deep. Have on hand some finely screened good soil to which bonemeal has been added”a 5-inch potful to each bushel of soil. Partly fill the holes with this soil and then tamp it down with a stick until the hole is 3 or 4 inches deep. Place a bulb in each hole and then cover with more screened soil and pack it down.

For lilies to be planted in the garden, make the holes 6 to 8 inches deep and put in a handful of sand. The bulb should rest on this sand. There are many lilies suited to fall planting. To name a few: regale, henryi, tigrinum, hansoni, auratum, speciosum rubrum, speciosum album and, of course, the favorite candidum or Madonna lily. If lilies arrive too late for fall planting, I pot them up and plunge them in a coldframe for planting the following spring.

Tree Moving

All evergreens and all deciduous trees and shrubs, with the exception of magnolias, can be moved now. The magnolias move best in the spring while in flower.

Begin tree moving by digging a trench around the tree or shrub, the distance from the trench to the tree being governed by the size of the tree and the amount of fibrous root to be considered. Dig the trench to the bottom of the root system, which will be anywhere from 12 to 18 inches down; then dig underneath to cut away as many tap roots as possible.

By using a garden fork the ball can be reduced in size without injuring the outer roots. Next the ball should be bound in burlap to protect it while in the process of moving. Most deciduous trees up to 4 inches in caliper can be moved without a ball, but with as many roots as possible. When moved without a ball it pays to cut the tree top back at least one-third to one-half.

When planting, with or without a ball, be sure to use plenty of water to puddle the soil around the roots, and water frequently and generously until frost takes over. Tall trees require staking after being moved, as a rule with wire and three stakes. Old pieces of hose on the wire where it goes around the tree will prevent injury. After putting the wires on the tree, drive in the stakes to tighten the wires. If the tree is small, a stake driven in alongside and tied, not too tightly, to the tree with soft string will do the trick. Too tight a tie will cut the tree.

If the new location does not provide good soil it is well to move in some good soil for around the roots. It will help give the tree a good start.

Preparations against frost. In late September frost is quite a problem. Better get all the tender pot and tub plants moved in to a frostproof building. The hydrangea plants, however, ripen better if they have a light frost before being stored: To make certain of having early flowering chrysanthemums cover them with burlap. In some favored places, near salt water or within the limits of a large city, it is possible to flower chysanthemums without protection, but if your garden lies in a valley that is a frost pocket, as mine does, covering must be quite thorough.

Lawns. When the grass in the new lawn is 3 to 4 inches high, go over it with a light mower, ordinary lawn sprinkler systems or even underground lawn sprinkler systems, and cut it back to about 1-1/2 inches. If it is not cut it mats and starts to rot.

Harvesting potatoes. All potatoes should be dug this month for storage. After digging, lay them out in a dry, dark, airy place for two or three days to dry them out, and to allow the skins to harden. After this put them; in the storage bin. It should be about 40 degrees. Do not expose them to much light at any time or they will turn green and will not be edible.

Gladiolus. Lift the gladiolus corms when the tops turn yellow, and allow the tops to ripen before cutting them off. An airy shed it best for this job. When the tops are dry, cut off the stem but leave on the sheath that is over the bulb. Store the bulbs in a cool airy cellar and during the winter give them a thorough dusting with an insecticide to kill any hibernating thrips.

Winter cover crop. As each section of the garden becomes vacant, dig it over and sow a crop of winter rye. Rye puts life into the soil. It has a strong fibrous root system that binds light soil and breaks down heavy soil, and it is an excellent soil conditioner.

If rye is not to be sown, then clean out the old crops, dig over the section and leave it in as rough a condition as possible so that the winter frost and snow can penetrate and help condition the soil.

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Cymbidiums are cool-growing orchids which will not flower if grown too warm, or under too much shade, and they do better under controlled greenhouse culture than as indoor plants. Their size is also a drawback as a house plant. If no greenhouse is available, or if the greenhouse overheats in summer, making it unsuitable, the cymbidiums can be summered out of doors for as long as there is no danger of frost.

They are mainly pink and white, with yellow less frequently seen. The flowers will last for several weeks, and old flower spikes will produce more flowers if cut back to a ‘node’ along the stem.

The plants are evergreen, and do not produce pseudobulbs. New growths are made each year from the base of the previous growth. The flower stem comes from the centre of a mature growth.

The species can be found all over the old world in the Far East to Thailand and the Philippines, New Guinea and Malaysia. The green- leaved types are cool-growing, whereas those with mottled foliage are the intermediate varieties. They are partly epiphytic and partly terrestrial, but in cultivation they like shady, moist conditions. Good house plants, they do even better grown in an indoor case. Paphiopedilums should be kept watered all year. They have varying flowering times and can bloom at any time. The blooms are extremely long-lasting from eight to ten weeks.

Re-pot when necessary immediately after flowering. Remove the flowers by cutting through the stem about 2.5 cm from the base after the last flower has been open for about two weeks. Potting can then be done earlier and the plant will have a better spring start. Remove the spike if repotting is not required; it will lessen the strain on the plant at a time when the new growth is getting started.

The sub-tribe Oncidiinae, which contains odontoglossums and many other natural genera, will interbreed with great ease to produce robust plants which seem to have a tremendous vigour. Whether in a greenhouse or on a windowsill, they will thrive given the very basic requirements. Many of them are ‘heat tolerant’ and appear equally at home in temperatures much too high for their true Odontoglossum ancestors.

The dorsal sepal, petals and lip are very much smaller and this would be an unassuming flower if it were not for the sepals which extend for over 7 in (15 cm). The cirrhopetalums are related to a much larger genus, the bulipphyllurns, and are widely distributed throughout the tropical world.

The genus Cirrhopetalum was first described in 1830; there are about 3o species, and not as many hybrids. Elizabeth Anne `Bucklebury’ AM/RHS is one of the most successful hybrids in the genus and was raised by a famous old firm, Stuart Low Co., in 1969. Its parents are Cirrhopetalum longissima and C. rothschildianum.

Originally it was the wild species which were cultivated, but within the last 130 years the raising of man-made hybrids has taken priority. Many of the species are in a sorry state, being almost extinct in the wild, as their habitat is being rapidly destroyed, but at the same time greatly sought after in collections, where they have become rare items indeed.

Not all species will readily breed in cultivation and the raising of seedlings is often difficult under artificial conditions. Hybrids often have a wider tolerance of artificial conditions and are a much better proposition for the beginner.

It is well known that orchids belong to one of the largest families of plants on earth and that their variety is unsurpassed in the plant kingdom. Their method of growth is a fascinating study in itself: the plants have become so well adapted that they are completely at home in even arctic and temperate regions where they live conventionally in the ground as terrestrials. In warmer tropical and subtropical areas they have developed a completely different method and grow by attaching themselves to trees as epiphytes.

The plants can be found growing at sea level, on the shore line, often subjected to daily salt sprays; others grow very high in mountainous regions, up to 2,000 ft (3,65o m) or more, where snow and frost occur. The orchids are protected from freezing at this altitude by the rarefied atmosphere.