FIRE & WATER HOLIDAY CENTERPIECE
Bring the magic of water gardening indoors this holiday season. Change a traditional candle and evergreen centerpiece into a stunning water garden centerpiece that reflects your passion for water gardening. All it takes is a little imagination and WATER!. An original, festive water garden centerpiece will not only be eye-catching, but will also catch many compliments from your guests.
Water garden centerpieces are easy to create and elegant to display. They need not be complicated, time-consuming or expensive. Below are a few simple and easy starter ideas, but let your own creativity flow to create the design that expresses your own personality and passion.
- Fill a shallow glass or crystal bowl halfway with cranberries, which are easy to find in the grocery this time of year. Add water to 1 inch from the rim of the bowl. Set a single, festive holiday candle in the center. To complete the look, add some tea lights or votive candles and greenery around the base of the bowl.
- For a different look to the centerpiece above, set votive candles in the shallow bowl or use floating candles instead. Surround the centerpiece with a garland of artificial fall leaves for a Thanksgiving theme or evergreen boughs for Christmas. At Christmas add twinkling rice lights entwined in the evergreen boughs and add a red bow or two. The traditional reds and greens along with the twinkling lights will attract the ooohhhs and aaahhhs of your holiday guests.
- A similar look yet different centerpiece can be created by floating a large football mum or spider mum in a shallow glass bowl filled with water and colored gemstones. Set the bowl on a pedestal on a mirror square. Surround the pedestal base with evergreen springs or a ring of cranberries. Colored votive candles that match your color scheme, scattered around the mirror base, will add to the coziness of the centerpiece as the mirror catches the light and reflects it up toward the flower petals. A single, large poinsettia bloom works well for Christmas with matching red votives to accent the centerpiece.
- A single hurricane vase filled with a single pillar candle, water and colored gemstones or other holiday baubles can be an elegant centerpiece. Flank the hurricane vase with additional pillar candles of varying heights. Scatter additional gemstones and holiday baubles on the table around the candle display to continue the theme. Other items to scatter on the table might include greenery, cinnamon sticks, holiday berries springs and pinecones.
Get creative this holiday season and design your own original water garden holiday centerpiece. Who said “fire and water don’t mix!”?
Here’s a quick reference checklist to help guide you in getting your pond ready for the winter season.
- Remove leaves, debris and any other organic materials from the pond.
- Cut back hardy plants, but leave any tall grasses for landscape appeal through the winter.
- Remove tropical plants from the pond. Treat most as annuals and discard, but some can be treated as houseplants and moved indoor for the winter.
- When the water temperature reaches 55 degrees F, stop feeding your fish altogether.
- Decide if you are going to run your waterfall for the winter or shut it down. While a winter waterfall can provide some beautiful ice sculptures, it can also create ice dams and cause other freeze problems. Know the issues and maintenance upkeep before deciding to keep your waterfall running through the winter. If you live in a climate where your pond experiences long periods of ice cover, then it’s probably wise to shut your waterfall down for the winter.
- Disconnect the power to your pump and drain the BioFalls by unscrewing the check valve fitting.
- Remove the pump and store it in a bucket of water in a frost-free location.
- Remove the skimmer mats and brushes; thoroughly clean them and then store them in a dry place.
- Remove filter mats and biomedia from BioFalls, clean thoroughly and store in a dry location.
- Add an air pump, bubbler, or de-icer to keep a hole in the ice for gas exchange and to add oxygen to the water if you have fish and plan to leave them in your pond for the winter.
- Enjoy your winter pond if you decide to keep it open!
The Winter Pond
THE FALL POND
The Fall Pond
One of the coolest things about having a pond is watching the changes that occur in and around it as the seasons change. In fall the colorful leaves enhance the beauty of the pond. It also signals that we need to start thinking about preparing our pond for the coming colder months. Just like preparing other outdoor landscaping for the winter, a pond takes a little maintenance in the fall. Whether you are planning on keeping your pond open all winter or closing it down, some special attention is required if you want your pond to be clean and clear next Spring.
Those beautifully colored leaves can be a big problem for pond owners. Leaves and debris need to be kept from getting into the pond and sinking to the bottom where they decay and upset the balance of the pond’s ecosystem. The harmful gasses that are released by decaying leaves can be trapped in the water by surface ice and result in fish kill. Decaying leaves can also release tannins into the water, turning it a tea color. And cleaning out piles of wet, decaying leaves is not something you want to be doing when spring arrives. So our main goal in the fall is to keep the leaves from getting into the pond in the first place.
It’s almost impossible to keep all leaves out of a pond, but here are a couple of suggestions and hints to help with this impossible task.
1. Empty your skimmer often – at least once a day. A skimmer is your first line of defense against the falling and blowing leaves. As the leaves land on the pond surface, they are quickly drawn into the debris net or basket of the skimmer. HINT – don’t empty your skimmer net/basket near the pond or you’ll find yourself removing the same leaves over and over again.
2. Install protective netting over the pond. Stretch netting across the surface of the pond and fasten the edges to the ground with long ground staples. BE CAREFUL NOT TO PUNCTURE THE LINER! This protective layer of netting will keep the majority of leaves out of the pond and make it easier to gather up and dispose of the leaves. Keep the netting in place until the bulk of the leaves have fallen. IT IS IMPORTANT TO CLEAN THE LEAVES OFF OF THE NETTING ON A REGULAR BASIS. This can be done by using a leaf blower or removing the net from one side of the pond and collecting the leaves from the net and disposing of them. Re-attach the netting until you need to clean the leaves off again. HINT – be sure to remove the netting before the pond freezes over for the winter.
3. After the netting has been removed, use a long-handled net to scoop out and remove any remaining leaves or debris that may get into the pond or sink to the bottom. Don’t worry about leaving a few leaves behind…they will give frogs and insects a place to hibernate over the winter.
You will still end up with some leaves on the pond floor, but if you follow these guidelines, leaf removal in the spring won’t be as big of a chore.
If anyone has been successful at keeping leaves and debris out of a pond using a different method that others might benefit from, we’d love to hear about it!
We are so excited to have our blog finally up and running. It’s been in the planning stages since last March, but now it’s officially launched! Check it out at www.par2ponds.com!
Our goal with our new blog is to provide interesting and fun facts, stories, and information for the water gardening enthusiasts! We’re open for any questions on any water gardening topics too! So feel freely to forward your questions to us.
We won’t be forgetting those of you who may be interested in our synthetic golf practice systems either. We’ll have some interesting tidbits for you as well.
This “Ribbits” page will be dedicated to informational and educational articles that may be of interest to you. Check back soon!
Glenn & Linda Koppin
Aqua Par Lifestyles Corporation
