Great ideas! Love your pink shoes & purse & the green frog then you popped up with the sink!! Great planting especially for the taller pink plants in back & you finished it off with the copper colander & aluminum ones with more plants!! love them, what are you using in them to hold in the dirt/ Jan

I have only had limited success with barley of any kind. I did have some luck with hydrogen peroxide, but I'm a little squeamish about using it and it is a bit controversial. Some people get very hostile about it, but I must say the algae disappeared pretty quickly after using it. I used one bottle per 500 gallons. The barley releases hydrogen peroxide as it decomposes, but it must be in smaller amounts. I ended up erecting one of those picnic tents over the pond to shade it from the sun. This has been the only thing that has really worked for me, other than the multitudes of tadpoles chowing down on it, LOL. I started looking at the advertisment flyers for the sporting goods stores, and found one cheap. This may not be an option for you, but here's a pic so you can see what it looked like. I used it during the hottest part of the summer. I have a koi pond "hybrid", rather than an actual watergarden. All my plants are in bog pockets at the pond's edge, but I usually put one Blue Beauty water lily in a sunny corner of the pond because they're so gorgeous.

Before you bother to read this long-winded thingy please understand that I toss in barley straw in the head end of my pond not because I particularly believe it will help but - for me - its very cheap and canÂt really do any harm. But I donÂt use any of the so-called barley straw extracts...as to why, well, youÂve got to read the rest of this mess. I guess I have a different take on all of this starting with the difference between a "hypothesis" and a "theory". There are several hypothesis out there as to what barley straw does for removing or suppressing algae growth. The link IÂve provide below sums up a lot of what is believed to be known about how barley straw works...but this is all in the "hypothesis" stage. As best I am able to determine there are no peer-reviewed journal publications where someone has actually measured the hydrogen peroxide supposedly generated by the barley straw and in a situation which constitutes a decent experimental design; such an experiment should contain multiple ponds half of which receive barley straw treatment and the other half not along with in situ measurements for turbidity/chlorophyl or other quantitative measures of algae and measurements for those "things" that are believed to be contributed by the straw for suppression of the algae. Furthermore, if it was in fact hydrogen peroxide being produced from the straw then the continuous addition of small amounts of hydrogen peroxide from a dosing or metering pump should be capable of performing the same process but does not appear to do so. Also, there are some very sensitive assays for measuring hydrogen peroxide at the cellular level and yet I have not seen where anyone has actually measured hydrogen peroxide production. Many companies used to advertise barley straw as an algicide or algistat but no longer do so. Why? To quote Dr. LembiÂs write-up (see link below): "...The EPA defines a pesticide as "any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest." If a claim is made that barley "controls" algae (a pest), it is legally considered to be a pesticide. However, no company has ever registered barley for use as a pesticide. It has not gone through the testing required for registration. Therefore, barley cannot be sold as a pesticide to control algae. This ruling has serious implications for certified commercial applicators (individuals who have been state certified to apply aquatic pesticides for hire) and lake management specialists. These individuals cannot recommend or apply barley for algae control; this application would be the same as distributing an unregistered pesticide. Likewise, garden shops and nurseries cannot legally sell barley straw for the stated or implied purpose of algae control. Registration is required for all pesticides before they are sold or distributed, regardless of whether most applications go into larger bodies of water or into water gardens, even though the latter usually are privately owned, very small, and not likely to have an impact on the natural environment. A homeowner with a "private" pond or lake is in a different situation. For the homeowner who does work on their own pond, barley qualifies as a "home remedy" and does not come under EPA authority. ..." The key being that insufficient testing exists to register barley straw according to EPA. So now back to the main point of this thread: using a product that is derived from barley straw. If it is not known what the active agent(s) is/are in barley straw then how can one be sure that the "extract" really contains the active agents? What tests have they performed? IÂm obviously discounting the typical product endorsements that come without adequate data. IÂd go ahead and add it if I thought it would help. But maybe you might be just as well off taking some dollar bills, carefully shredding them and putting them in the pond instead. At least you could cut back on shipping and handling costs! LOL! As I have mentioned to some folks in other conversations there is a strong "placebo effect" here: having paid money for something, been told by the seller that it will work we really, really want to believe that itÂs doing itÂs job. But maybe not. So I say go for it if you will feel better having bought the product and if you want to believe. However, the hard data doesnÂt seem to currently exist to support the various hypotheses surrounding barley straw and barley straw extracts. Excuse me, IÂve got to go add a bit more barley straw to my waterfalls! ÂDavid

Thanks guys, I'll make sure he brings the clean stuff home. He brings the 'other' type home on his clothes all the time, sometimes I think he must roll about in it, he's a bit whiffy sometimes! I remember saying jokingly to you once hardin about working too hard on your pond, but I've realised I do it too! It's a new pond we've got but each night I go home from work (about 5:30) & spend at least a couple of hours messing about with it. Last night I put some flocculent in as our koi (we rescued a load of koi including 2 huge ghosts from a leaking pond at the weekend) have been happily churning up the bottom. I also reset a piece of the edge that has been bugging me for ages as I could see the liner. Before I realised, it was 8:30 & I hadn't had anything to eat! I'm going away on holiday next week, don't know if I can bear to leave it. I love it so much.