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| Hi everyone. I have a 5K+ pond and I just have to give a big thumbs up to Watercress and all that it has done for my pond.
I have a bottom drain to settling pond. A 300 gallon skippy type filter, a 57 watt UV and two pumps that turn the pond over about every hour give or take. My source water is high in phosphates and I change about 10 percent every month. In the old days I had a pressure filter, the same skimmer with UV, settling pond, DIY small degassing chamber, twice weekly water changes and GREEN WATER! lol Since I added floating planters with roughly 50 square feet of WC in the main pond, and WC in the filter and settling pond, and reduced water changes my water has been crystal clear with NEGLIBLE STING ALGAE since early spring. It is amazing and I highly recommend it. I only have 3 large Koi and two shubby mixes but I feed them at least from 4 to 8 ounces of high quality home made food from April to October. I have attached a pic so that you can see that it is an attractive plant. It is in the right hand corner of the pic in a floating planter. The other floating planters also have some. Jenny (Koijoyii) uses it and also has it growing in the soil. It is an amazing pond plant and I wanted to share my experience with it.:) Regards,
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Follow-Up Postings:
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| Lisa, isn't it great stuff for using up the nutrients in the water! Have you lifted it up to see the myriad of roots it has working for it, there are thousands of those fine thread like roots just sucking up the waste out of the water. I cut the watercress back about every two weeks. Just the overgrown tops and that causes the root ball to put out more roots and become even more dense. |
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| Gorgeous pond and beautiful water. I've had a good summer so far. Have only had one moment where water became murky. For the first time, my WH has produced baby plants. Yee Haw! Maybe I can grow it after all. I wish I could find watercress though. I have looked and looked in the produce section and no luck yet. Course with our hot humid weather and pond in full sun, I'm not sure I'd be able to grow it anyway. Darn it. |
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| I agree with you all 100% same experience here. Northern ponders have a hard time in the spring since WH and water lettuce are very susceptible to frost and will not flourish till the water warms up. This is why Watercress is the solution, it does excellent in conditions that these plants will not. I'm amazed how many experienced ponders suffer with suspended algae and string algae that have not tried this as a solution. The fact providing you can find it one bunch that cost 1.50 will be all you need, makes it all the better. In the south in extreme heat it will die back but will take off once the weather cools. |
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| Beautiful pond! I use lots of water cress in my stream. No one has yet mentioned that it does much better in flowing water. The source is usually an upscale market. |
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- Posted by justplaindon 7 (My Page) on Fri, Jul 9, 10 at 15:25
| It's also easy to grow this from seed if you can't locate it at a local market. You can give them a little bit of an early start indoors and move them outside to your pond. Depending on what you have in your pond, it's also cool to go grab a little fresh water cress (before it gets large and bitter) to throw in a salad. L8r, |
Here is a link that might be useful: Currentlly in bloom in the greenhouse
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| OMG Don...those orchids are absolutely beautiful. Who needs a pond when you have all this beauty to look at? horton I will start looking for watercress, I know it's not at my grocer. I will try Daves garden and here and see if anyone has some seeds for sale or trade. Your pond is beautiful. All your plants look nice and healthy and happy |
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| Hi Lisa: Your pond is always so beautiful in pics but even better up close and personal. After seeing how gorgeous your watercress island looks I decided to give the watercress in my skippy filter a hair cut and place some more on my floating islands. The cuttings I took already had roots. When I plopped them onto the islands I noticed thousands of baby water striders. These islands seem to be breeding grounds for frogs and insects. I just love your ingenuity. I not only have koi grandchildren I now have water strider grandchildren. lol I have a feeling they are the reason for my beautiful koi babies too. Jenny |
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