Hi Jenny, First, the more important questions: Nope, leaf peeper season hasn't started yet! That's usually the end of September - first week in October (for the Champlain Valley). Already many motels and Hotels are booked solid. Shoveling snow?? When one is retired it is irrelevant. You get up, you look out, you say "oh, it snowed last night; looks like 18". Isn't it pretty". You have another cup of tea/coffee; go back to bed or not. Wait until Spring to shovel out. Not-a-problem! Now to your questions: First let's deal with some heresy: a hole in your ice DOES NOT MATTER! Gasp! WHAT DID HE SAY??? Nope, it's all about providing a surface for gas exchange. IF... you're using a heater, a light bulb, stock tank heater, etc. then it IS about keeping a hole open since that is the only surface over which the gas exchange can take place. However, with an aerator the gas exchange surface is in the bubbles...NOT in the hole that may or may not be in the ice. All that air you pump in there has to go somewhere otherwise you'd have the equivalent of one of those air-hockey games only with an "ice puck" floating on an air cushion! But that doesn't happen...the air finds a way out - through a crack, through the edges, though a hole. So if it "domes over"...so what? The air is STILL finding a way out. And because you are pumping air in it is the aggregate surface area of all those bubbles that is providing the surface area for gas exchange...and it is HUGE! With a stocktank heater in our neighborhood with our winters you might get a few square feet for a hole although at -20F you might find it disappears! But the aeration approach continues to put out 10's of square feet of surface area every minute!!! As a result not only will you keep more than enough oxygen in there (not really that much of a problem given that the metabolisms for the fish are almost non-existent as well as the microbes involved in consuming organics - and oxygen - aren't doing too much...but still not exactly zero!) but you will be stripping out ammonia and carbon dioxide and other gases you wouldn't want trapped under the ice. This is the real benefit of the approach to using aeration. As to the plastic tent? Not sure it does too much although it does allow me to see the hole for an extra couple of months. But I've had it get ice inside, even an inch or so ABOVE the water level... but still not really relevant as long as the aerator/bubbler is doing it's thing. Note the ice auger in one picture...I went out to check one fine February day (think high of -10°F!). Couldn't really see a hole in the ice under the teepee. Drilled a hole and looked...yep, everything was working fine. But the ice melted out under the teepee more about a month before it melted out of the pond so there is some solar benefit. The real purpose of the floating thing is to hold the aerator above the bottom of the pond. As to adding a stock tank heater on the coldest days?? I wouldn't bother. If you lived in zone 6 or 7 you might have some impact on the temperature in or around the heater but in my zone (and I suspect yours) adding even a 2500 watt heater is akin to performing a particular bodily function into the wind! Yes, it probably will melt out a hole, but once the heater is down near the bottom of the pond with an outside temperature of say -15° or -25°F I suspect there will be no measurable impact on water temperature. Having a heater on hand, however, does provide a way to work on thawing out a line if it develops an ice plug. I don't own a heater since, as mentioned above, I use other approaches for that problem. Like I said.. it works for me and as posted in the URL above it works for other folks as well. The problem is to understand that you are not really trying to HEAT the water to some acceptable limit but rather maintain a surface area open for gas exchange. I like cheap. I like what works...and so far, over several years, it has worked for me. The biggest factor will be whether your pond depth and volume will provide the heat transfer necessary to keep a water layer below the ice, i.e., making sure the whole (no pun intended!) thing doesn't freeze up! ---David

Hi Mike: Whever I left my water hyacinth and water lettuce in the pond after we had the first frost it would rot and sink before I could pull it out. As soon as the frost hit it the leaves would just fall off. I don't think anything will kill pennywort. This stuff took over my pond this summer. I had a little boat with two fake frogs fishing from it. The pennywort totally covered the boat. As a matter of fact I forgot about it. You know how it is: Out of sight, out of mind. When I recovered the boat in the overgrown pennywort I had to cut it out. It took me three days to cut though the pennywort and everything it grew through i.e. floating planters,totally choked out my water lilies, etc. We have had several killing frosts and 1/2 inch of snow and that stuff is still growing strong along my pond edges. It grew between the rocks under my pond liner. I have a bad feeling that I am going to be fighting this stuff for years. Someone posted on this forum that it's not invasive unless it gets to land, well it overgrew the edges of my pond and was rooted into the soil. So I guess in answer to your question both you and your wife are right. Jenny

My first goal is to get my plants moved from the old house to the new one. We moved from PA to Denver in 2007 and have been renting since then. I don't think I have been on GardenWeb since we moved. I did bring a bunch of things with me that first spring. This spring we are buying a house not too far from where we have been renting. I need to dig a holding bed as soon as we close and start moving my stuff. I have a few things I would like to find a permanent home for before digging (like lavender) but most things just need to stay alive. Also the house needs paint so I won't be doing any foundation beds until after that happens. I hope to spend spring and summer digging and mulching and preparing for next spring. Oh, and there are fruit trees. :) We'll have apple, pear and plum. I think one of the apples is going to be a bit of a sacrificial victim of my learning to prune. Really I don't think I could make it worse short of killing it. The last two years I've been only barely motivated to do any gardening. Getting ready to buy this place and have my very own yard to do with as I please has really brought my energy and interest levels back up. :)

I love the primrose willow and can't wait for the runners to start to bring such lovely flowers. What I don't like is when it dies off for winter all the stalks go black and I never know wether to take it out as I want to keep it for the following year. Unfortunately it is combined with the watercress and often that smothers it. As to the watercress I just threw 3 sprigs in and it went crazy. I must have taken out 10 black bin bags full over the past year. They do get a carpet of roots, but if pulled gently each stem will easily pull out. They are a wonderful home for water bugs so plenty of food for the fish. My frogs all spawn in it and at the moment it is in full flower but needs cutting back now. What I would like to know is how long does it take for goldfish/shubunkins to have their fry. I noticed the fish over the last few days thrashing about and all in the watercress. If they have spawned I obviously don't want to remove the baby eggs with the watercress. Will I be able to tell if the eggs are on the cress or shall I leave everything alone? Alison