A meditation garden ponder

[kiya]

So I got onto the subject of container water gardens a while back, and got a book, and have been pondering at the thing a bit. There isn't much that's different than the man-made-and-maintained pond that I helped set up and learned about the maintenance of, though there are a few points. So I ponder (and write thoughts, partly because jinian asked).

Most of the information-stuff I'm finding is presuming that the thing will be outdoors. However, I want to do some tropicals in the plants, and those won't survive the weather in this climate zone unless the pond goes to a certain depth, and that requires a certain amount of size which we don't have, and anyway, I'd like to be able to move the thing and take it with me.

Water lilies need at least four hours of good sunlight (many need six, and prefer afternoon sun) to bloom. An indoor garden should probably be by a window, and probably also have a supplemental sun-lamp on a timer. I need to see if I can dig up how much surface area an individual lily wants, to see if it's feasable to get two -- a day-bloomer and a night-bloomer, and a blue one and a white one. Probably easier with dwarf lilies and an oblong enclosure, maybe with the dwarf papyrus in a section in the middle to help keep them from taking over each other's surface areas if one gets off to a faster growth than the others. (Not that I've seen that happen personally, no, nuh-uh.)

Planting in the pond I grew up with was done in pots set on the bottom, or on bricks and the like on the bottom. The container gardens book I have (or maybe the one I flipped through in the bookstore yesterday) has suggestions for planting straight into the container, like putting rocks in to make a divide and raising the dirt in the area that'll have marginal plants rather than deepwater ones. I'm pondering which approach I want to take; I'm slightly leaning towards pots because it'd be easier to take the pots out and move the container empty than it would be to move the container, dirt, rocks, plants and all.

An outdoor water garden like this would need fish, to eat the insect larvae and otherwise prevent the thing from becoming a mosquito incubator, but also to help keep nutrients balanced, which would stil be an issue inside. Keeping algae down also an issue, so I should get some algae-eating fish. And I'll also, I think, get some neon tetras. Because they're blue, and I want blue fish.

According to some pond ecology balance calculations, such a thing might want snails. I don't want snails. You have two snails, you have infinite snails. They're worse than guppies. They'll completely take over an ecosystem when they don't have sufficient predation, and they put out enough eggs that 'the fish will eat the eggs' is not sufficient predation.

I wonder if papyrus count as 'bog plants' or 'oxygenating grasses'.


Recommended soil: heavy clay loam. Pebble over the top of it with something aesthetic to keep the mud down. Water lilies need at least a ten-inch pot, wider is better rather than deeper if size modified; lotuses planted in soil at the bottom of a pond will take it over. Fertilizer tablets. Care notes, for reference. Six to twelve inches from the top of the pot. Careful with water temperatures -- at least 70 degrees. Talk to teinedreugan about whether or not a heater might be a good idea. Try to set it up so a water pump isn't needful; lilies prefer still water.

Dwarf papyrus, available for between four and nine dollars online. Don't know about availability in water-gardening stores, but the only one of those I have any idea where is is in deepest darkest rural Maryland, and thus not much use to me here. "Real" papyrus grows to something like six feet tall; not so useful. This grows to between a foot and a half to two and a half; much more manageable. And it's handsome stuff, too. Not hardy in this region. Wants to have the top of its pot essentially at the surface. (0-4 inches.) Tolerant of a variety of light conditions.

Hm. It says all ponds should have underwater plants. I wonder what would be a good idea for me for doing that; it does make sense on some of the oxygenation stuff, since the papyrus is mostly out of the water and the lilies mostly on the surface. Make a note. Anacharis is mentioned. I remember this one, I think. Wild celery and fanwort also mentioned; fanwort is a spawning place for fish that are so inclined. Anacharis has surface flowers sometimes, white ones.

Be sure not to put dirt or pebbles over the crown of water lilies. Lily planting advice. Water lilies seem to run about thirty dollars.

Container garden specific advice. Tetragona is a white dwarf lily. The night blooming lily listed on that page is red, no good.

I can find red, white, and pink night-bloomers so far. At least 20 gallons for one lily, but I can't find anything with information for two. This says viviparous lilies are best for indoor aquaria; I have a new word to add to searches. Okay, it says a 4x6 pond can only accomodate one medium sized lily, and a tub can handle a miniature one; I want to find more information about small ones. I may have to give up the two lily idea, which would be sad. Blue tropical lilies are less picky about sun. (!)

Nymphaea lotus is a night-bloomer? Cool. It's no N. caerulea, and I probably can't find that specific species either, but a white night-bloomer would therefore be reconstruction appropriate. The Trudy Slocums here are only fifteen dollars. Plant spread 'up to six feet' is probably a radius. Harrum. Same site, blue day-bloomers -- the Blue Beauty says it 'can adapt' to restricted area, and wow, is that blue. The Bob Trickets are handsome, probably too large. The George T. More is another dark one, but smaller. Hm.

Nrrr. I can find a miniature night bloomer, and it's pink. Rar. No miniature tropicals there. This site says the Blue Beauty is versatile. Harrum. And the Dauben can handle tub gardens, that's a good note to have. The Woods White Night is more handsome than the Slocumbs, I think, but no information about the size it likes.

Graah. Okay. Enough notes for now.

Comments

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Fascinating stuff, sounds like it would be a lovely creation for sure - only thing I'd be concerned with is the water getting too green and stagnant indoors, you might need a pump after all, or I keep seeing these solar fountains advertised, they just float on the water and that might keep the water moving.. but I know very little about such things, our outdoor pond supports frogs and snails happily but is badly in need of some care and repair.

[kiya]

I'm hoping that underwater plants and algae-eating fish might keep that down. And not having as much real sunlight probably would, too.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

For alage-eating fish, you might consider mollies or platies. They do a better job keeping algae down than any suckerfish I've ever had, and platies come in blue-sheened variants if you can find a place that has the wilder-looking ones. (Not that the orange and red ones aren't pretty, of course, but I like the wild speckledy cool-colored fishes myself.) Of course, they do breed a bit.

Heaters are always recommended for fish tanks, even if you have cold-water fish. Consistency is important.

Thank you for posting your notes! I doubt I'll be doing anything like this soon, but it's great to read about.

[kiya]

I suspect breeding a bit may not be a major issue; at this point I'm suspecting we'll wind up with a ~45 gallon tank. Which is a bloody great lot of fish-inches. Are they as bad as guppies? I was once given one guppy unto the fifth generation. And since the lilies want a minimum water temperature of 70 degrees anyway, the whole overwintering thing would be vastly improved by a heater.

I shall ask the dragonly one about his thoughts about platies.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

They've bred less than guppies in my experience, but they're livebearers like guppies so will tend to have babies. If you're not sentimental about fry, you can just limit the number of places for them to hide and they'll get eaten.

thanks for papyrus picture link

[boojum.livejournal.com]

Oh! The kooshball grass is papyrus! Now I can explain it to people. (It's a decorative plant in the LA area, and "bamboo-like plant with kooshballs made of pine needles on the top" confuses people.)

Re: thanks for papyrus picture link

[kiya]

<door>Glad to be of service.</door>

Re: thanks for papyrus picture link

[thastygliax.livejournal.com]

If any Boston-area folks want to see what "real" papyrus (the 6' tall stuff) looks like, they have some at the Museum of Science, in the Sun Lab area (along with many other cool plants that need more heat than Boston has). Seeing it helps a LOT in visualizing what some of those highly-stylized ancient Egyptian paintings actually depict...