Welcome to my winter blog. As I write, the rain and hail is hammering on the roof and the wind is strong enough to carry away a hippopotamus, but already the first signs of Spring are there. The first frogspawn has appeared and the frog chorus is noticeable during the early and late hours. In more established ponds there will be a good network of floating and rafting persistent stems from plants like Potentilla palustris, Persicaria amphibia and Menyanthes. These persistent stems are invaluable to encourage spawning behaviour. In future years, when performing your autumn clear-up in October or November, it’s best to cut back and remove any dead plant material, but these stems are live, though dormant, and should be trimmed lightly where necessary, leaving plenty behind.
There are also the plants that do best in cooler water and go dormant in summer, such as Aponogeton , Callitriche and Water cress (Nasturtium). Few other plants will be growing at all in the cold dark months of January and February and they are best left undisturbed. Lastly there are a few evergreen plants like the Acorus gramineus family and Baumea. If you have a newly constructed pond devoid of plants, it is difficult to find anything other than those at this time of year to provide cover and spawning material; you may have to be patient and plan for the season to come. Mid to late March in the south and mid to late April in the north is early enough for planting. All through the year there will be plants that will come and go, so it is unlikely that you will be able to purchase all your plants in one hit, though in May to July typically everything will be available subject to stock remaining. Our low carriage charge means that it will not be too painful to make several purchases at the optimum time of year for the plants concerned.
You will notice relatively few changes in our range or prices this year, though the red government is doing its best to copy the blue government in making the bureaucratic burden and cost for small businesses almost unbearable. We do believe that our prices are competitive and our range unsurpassed; the proof is in our steadily growing turnover and the increasing number of professional garden designers, landscapers and gardeners who buy their plants from Devon Pond Plants.
As ever, if you have a larger than average project in mind, we offer free unbiased advice and can help you to avoid all the common mistakes, so please don’t hesitate to ask in good time. After your pond has been completed it is too late! As we get very busy from March to June, it gets very difficult to find time to answer the barrage of emails, so please check out our excellent resources both on our website and YouTube channel.
We are very excited to be filming our “How to build a garden pond” series of videos for YouTube in March and April, so there will then be no excuses for getting it wrong! When finished, the pond will act as a display pond in our retail sales area. David’s book is selling very well too and has received a lot of positive feedback. It’s a really good investment for anybody interested in ponds or pond planting, even garden professionals have found it useful. You can buy it from the usual sources and to David’s annoyance you will get it cheapest from Amazon, as they get discounts we can only dream of!
We have been smartening up our sales area at the nursery too, so our visitors will find it even easier to find what they are looking for, as always, a visit to us will give you access to the best plants at the lowest prices, with a few little treasures waiting to be discovered which can’t be ordered through our website.
Happy water gardening, I hope to hear from you when it gets a bit warmer!