Building And Stocking Larger Garden Ponds
>Proper planting for large ponds
Border plants for large ponds
Farm ponds are built to provide water for livestock when other sources dry up during drought, for fire protection, to provide swimming, boating, and year-round fishing, to attract waterfowl, and for numerous other reasons. The use for which a pond is intended will influence, of course, the size, shape, and design. There is no type of farm pond, regardless of its utilitarian service, which hasn't magnificent possibilities for water-lilies and shore-line plants.
There is a mistaken idea that decorative plants in a farm pond constitute a nuisance, however pretty they may be, the objection being based on the idea that they will quickly spread and cover the entire pond. Another objection comes from farmers who stock their ponds with game fish. In my part of the country, which is western Maryland, such stocking is frequently done with bass and bluegills. It is a nicely balanced combination, for the bluegills multiply just fast enough to support a good bass population, but not so fast that they can crowd out the bass. In a pond overgrown with greenery, say the pond owners, the bluegills have too much protective cover in which to hide from the bass, their population soon increases disproportionately, and the balance is upset.
Planted indiscriminately with decorative aquatics, a pond undoubtedly would be overtaken by these problems, but planted with a variety of carefully chosen water-lilies and aquatics, it will not be spoiled for.
Building and Stocking the Farm Pond 165
its intended use. At the same time, it will be a most beautiful aspect of the landscape.
All of the Marliac water-lilies are excellent for farm ponds. They offer a complete range of colors, forms, and sizes, and need no attention from year to year. Although they will produce a few more blooms and leaves each season, they will not spread. In a three- to four-year period, a single planting will have developed a tangle of roots and stems as big as a bushel basket. If desired, such a mass can be broken down to provide growing points for other parts of the pond.
Set the sections directly on the bottom. They will flourish on almost any fertilizer you have at hand. Water-lilies of the odorata and tuberosa species will spread if planted directly in the bottom, and within a few years will cover a pond. This can easily be prevented, however, by planting them in boxes or tubs which will restrict roots and prevent spreading. But when so planted, they require new soil and fertilizer every other year.
Tropical water-lilies are splendid for a pond. They do not spread. They can be planted directly in the pond in shallow water along the shore, but they must be propped up to a point where they can break the surface of the water if planted in the deep areas of the panel. They will die in the winter unless cared for as suggested in Chapter 9.