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Once you have a water garden, you soon discover that plants are not its only inhabitants. A myriad variety of creatures, from microscopic to very large, inhabit this garden, too. Some you will want and others you will want to get rid of. Let's start with the small guys.
I love to watch the large dragonflies (darters and darners) that come to my pond and perch so daintily on the iris leaves or on the rocks. Some of them are two or more inches long. I get brilliant reds and neon blues and a few more drab colors but they are all beautiful. The bees and the butterflies like my water, too. I have made certain to have rocks and gravel raised above the deeper water, staying moist so the insects can drink without drowning. Some insects, however, don't worry about that. Water skippers just walk around casually.
Among the unwanted, mosquitoes lay eggs in the water to hatch into little wigglers. You must do something about them. My low-tech solution is to keep goldfish in the ponds to eat the larvae, but you can also use BT dunks. BT is the shorthand for Bacillus thuringiensis , a biological insecticide that has been commercially produced for many years now. It does not harm fish, mammals or plants and the floating donut-shaped dispensers last a surprisingly long time. Mosquitoes are not my friends even though they do supply some food for fish.
Speaking of fish, many ponders have Koi (which are like goldfish, but are not goldfish) or other exotic fish (Orfes, Sticklebacks or even trout) in their water gardens. Koi can grow to more than two feet long and live for many, many years if they have a large enough pool and good care. Koi raising can become an expensive hobby fast, especially if you are importing breeding stock from Japan, where Koi are cult objects. My problem with Koi is this-my fish are prey to a number of other critters and I can't afford to feed the raccoons at $10 or more per fish.
So, I have Shubunkins and Comets and common goldfish that cost less than 50 cents each. In a good year they reproduce and then I have too many of them. I avoid the fancy goldfish with large eyes or long fins; I believe that these are more suited to an indoor aquarium. But "ordinary" goldfish are very hardy, live outdoors all year with no problems (even under ice) and are wonderfully decorative. I have had goldfish trained to come to my hand when I feed them. This is cute, but leads to overfeeding-a big NO NO-since excess fish food contributes to green water problems.
Along with fish you can add snails. I have done this several times and they lasted less than a week. My raccoons adore escargot! (Which makes me wonder why raccoons aren't better at organizing garden snail removal!) Amphibians and reptiles can also inhabit a home pond, although it has been years since I have seen the frogs that used to be so common in Lake Forest Park. Newts are no longer frequent visitors, either. I do see garter snakes from time to time and they are wonderful swimmers. Thankfully, they don't seem to bother my fish. They snack on slugs so I salute whenever I see one. Remember the slogan "Garter Snakes Are Good Friends" and encourage them to live in your shrubbery.
Birds come to the pond frequently and birds come in two categories-the lovely fluttery little ones that come to drink and bathe in the shallows and the great gray heron that comes to plunder and pillage. I give the little ones some sheltering shrubs and food in the winter but I put up a decoy plastic heron to discourage the raider and so far (three months) it has worked.
A heron, beautiful as it may be, can eat a dozen good sized fish in less time than it takes to drink one cup of coffee-I know this because my friend Margaret told me so. Every week seemed to be "Take A Bird To Lunch" week at her pond. I never got to watch the big one in action, but I have replaced fish many, many times. You can discourage them with netting over the pond, electric fences around the pond and wires strung several inches above the ground criss-crossing the pond. That's too much work for me, not to mention the hazards to my feet. I just buy new fish when they disappear.
Herons are not the only fish eaters in the neighborhood. My snail-loving raccoons also wade right in and munch anything they can catch. It is evident when the culprit is a raccoon as they also dig up water lilies and iris. Water lettuce is especially tasty to them- they just throw the tough outer leaves onto the driveway where they will compost. I put an 18 inch length of black plastic pipe under a pile of rocks in my shallowest spot to make a raccoon-proof hiding place and the fish seem to use it. My losses have diminished since I had that brainstorm. Still, I lost Spot, my 5 inch Shubunkin, just last week.
Other mammals also like ponds. I have seen a Norway rat swimming among the water lilies. (Not a happy sight!) The neighbor's dog likes to run through the shallow part just like a kid. My cats prefer pond water to tap water (pond water has more bouquet I guess) and several neighborhood cats congregate to watch fish and sing together in chorus. It's a bit like a British pub and gives a whole new meaning to the term "local watering hole".
For more information on the critters in your yard, contact your local Master Gardeners at a neighborhood clinic or by phone. In King County, the number is 206-296-3440; Pierce County is (253)798-7170 and Snohomish County is (425)357-6010. You can get help in identifying your critter and also get some great informational handouts on controlling the pests among them. You can also access Water Gardening Magazine .
Hortsense: Managing plant problems with Integrated Pest Management
