Tuesday was another decent day with some nice sunny periods, the relatively mild spell had lasted overnight. There was a bit of a strong coldish breeze blowing but I decided it might be now or never. The grass certainly needed a bit of a cut as the milder weather had kept it growing. The pond filter had also slowed down substantially and I reckoned a clean out before winter would do it good.
Not a great deal of difference in the before and after shot but I wasn't going for a summer cut, just a light trim with the mower at its highest setting. Once the grass was finished it was quickly onto the pond filter. I'm always amazed at just how much gunk the filter manages to remove from the pond.
This is typically how I expect the inside of the filter to look after a few weeks of operation. To be honest I can clean this amount of gunk out every couple of weeks through summer but much less now the fishes are rather less active in the cooler water. All the waste gets washed off onto the various garden plants which don’t seem to mind at all. I'm hoping the next clean out will be next springtime.
Although we've had a couple of very keen frosts it hasn't been cold enough to turn our banana (musa basjoo) leaves to mush.
Last year our osteospermums survived winter in the cold greenhouse and gave us some decent plants for starting off in tubs in spring. Hoping for a repeat this winter I moved our 2 pots into the greenhouse along with a tub of dahlias.
Here’s hoping for a reasonably mild winter with no prolonged cold spell which normally results in plant losses even with greenhouse protection.
Posts
I need to cut my grass once more and work up the courage to sort the pond out. I need to reduce the amount of oxygenating week and straighten up one or two things. But I'm not sure I can face the freezing cold water and lurking slimy things.
ReplyDeleteAt least I didn't have to get into the water. The water in the filter was a bit on the chilly side though.
Delete