Here's what I have, all bare roots: Mint (2 types), morning glory, some ivy, impatiens, a marigold, a small yellow daisy type flower that came in a basket arrangement, another yellow flower just added some wondering jew. Tried a geranium(water may ahve been too hight over crown)didn't make it. I had a few others that died, again, not sure, but the water may also been too high over the crown and/or too much root damage prior to planting. Also a good "rule of thumb" is to remove about 1/3 of the foliage when transplanting to compensate for root stress/damage. Also interested in knowing what other plants have been successfull in ponds, especially, bare roots. Jim

Lesliew There is some very good and very bad advise given here. First let me address the question of to clean or not to empty pond for cleaning. First I have seen no where that your pond has a bare liner anywhere, in fact you say you have a lot of gravel on the bottom. So I have to assume that the liner is covered with rock. If this is the case than you are building up debri in this rock that can not be removed by vacuuming. It normally can only be removed by emptying and pumping it out. Does this have to be removed? That depends on where you live and how you keep the pond in the winter. If you live somewhere the pond gets covered with ice than chances are that you will have a problem one winter. Can I tell you when this will happen? No that depends on a lot of different factors such as fish load, debri in pond, how a hole is kept in the ice, what state the debri in the pond is in, and how long the ice is on the pond. Is cleaning a pond hard on the pond? Yes but the killing of all the fish is harder on the owner. Do you need to add bacteria to the pond? This answer is going to start a lot of debate but here goes. If you have a pond that is covered in rock than you should add it as the manufacture suggests. If you live some where that you get ice on the pond than it becomes more important. Than it also depends on how good you are at keeping debri out of the pond. The main purpose of added bacteria is to break down debri in the pond smaller so that the bacteria that naturally occurs in the pond break it down to a point where it is not a problem. It does this far quicker than the bacteria in the pond can do it. The real problem comes from what type of bacteria in the pond is breaking this debri down. If the bacteria isn't getting any O2 than the bacteria that breaks the debri down produces some very nasty gases. These gases are what will kill the fish. Should I clean the pond with the fish in it? This depends on weather or not you have the bacteria that is producing these nasty gases and how fast you clean it. If you stir up this debri so that the gases are released faster than the pond can expell these gases thru the surface of the pond then the fish will be affected by these gases. Do I need a biological filter? Again this depends on several factors. Natural lakes and ponds don't have additional filters and they don't have problems. But that isn't quite true. Yes they do not have additional filters on them but nature keeps the fish load to what the body of water with the addition of fresh water can support. This is done by the amount of food that is available, concretations of natural chemicals that the fish put in the water gets high enough they stop reproducing and growing, and if all else fails fish kill offs. In the normal garden ponds these are controled. Fish are fed and water is changed so the fish load can quickly get higher than what the pond can support. Than what happens? Very simply you have fish die offs. I am sorry to be so windy but I waded into this thread not because of your situtation but because of other people that may read this thread and get some bad information. From what you have written you probably would not have a problem following the advise given on this thread but another ponder could have some very bad problems following it. Mike

Yes, my pond liner is standard .45 thick rubber roofing material. I'm not sure why the bamboo poked through it since other websites say you can use this to contain the bamboo. But it sure didn't work in my case. Thankfully it wasn't my big grove of bamboo that did this, it was just an area about 8X10 near that pond. I decided to take it out, because we'd been considering doing that anyway. Even before this happened. I like my bananas near the pond much better anyway. I cut down all the shoots and I'm keeping on cutting them until they exhaust themselves.

Due to a long illness with my late husband and us losing our home - I lost all of my pond and plants. I have now relocated and am starting all over again. I would love to trade any pond plants that anyone can s[are for postage. I have plenty of water lettuce and am paticularly looking for floating plants like hyacinth and also any lily pads. Anyone have any to spare? Thanks & God Bless!