Pond Experiment.

8-2-12 VERMONT: There’ve been a couple more brief showers and distant lightening. Today was hot with high humidity. I did another bunch of pruning, mostly around the house and cleaned up the bed where the rose bush was for new planting tomorrow. What I plant will depend on what looks good at the nursery.

The pond has not cleared with the treatments that have been done, in fact, it is a bit more murky than it was. So, yesterday I wired a hose to an anchor and dropped them in the middle of the pond with a float and rope attached to the anchor for later retrieval. The hose, three hoses actually, filled with water and were lead over the dam to the runoff brook. They are now syphoning water out of the pond, pond bottom water, the low oxygen saturation and high particle water.

Compared to the surface water, the bottom water is darker and murkier. It will be replaced by clear spring water and rain water. Usually the water added by rain just displaces other surface water. The nasty stuff on the bottom just sits there. There is seasonal turnover of the pond water when the bottom water is warmer than the surface water. This happens when the weather cools the surface in the fall and when the ice melts in the spring. The pond looks clearer at those times. Tomorrow I’ll figure out the rate of flow.

Everything is still blooming early. Wild asters are already opening, and the perennial chrysanthemums are out. The white phlox we have, an old cultivar, usually blooms in September, but is starting now.

New blooms: chrysanthemum, asters, white phlox.


Helenium, also known as sneezeweed for its late blooming season coinciding with ragweed.

Giant Swallowtail butterfly. The wing-span is at least three inches.

Chrysanthemum, out before its time.