Plants You have a lot. I'm not on site so hard to tell, but from the pics I'd probably remove all the plants from the pond and vacuum or scoop the bottom with a swimming pool leaf rake. When removing the plants note how deep they are. Moving them to deeper water might be an issue. For everything other than lilies moving plants to more shallow water, or even above the water is almost always better for the plants, so that would be OK if you like. Then I could assess the plants and pond better. Pots, baskets, directly plants? Can pots be reused? I can now see the pond without plants. How's it look to me? Were some plants hiding something that I want to continue to hide? I come up with a plan. Buy replacement pots? Maybe reduce the number of species returned to the pond. If the plants are planted directly in soil, not pots, you really have to empty the pond and deal with the plants. Fish have to be moved. That's a whole deal I won't get into now. Most (all) the plants will have to be divided. Depends on when last done. I just made a post on this. Most of dealing with plants just has to be learned with experience. But here's some things you may not know... When removed from the pond the plants can stay out of water for a really long time. Weeks, even months. The leaves may die back but the roots (rhizomes) last a long time out of water. Keeping them in water can actually cause rot. You can also plant them in regular garden pots with dirt, same as a regular garden plant, and just keep them well watered and they grow great. This is true for every plant except lilies, floaters and plants that grow completely underwater. Some times if you look up a plant on the web or printed on the label when buying a plant it will say 6" of water, or 12" of water, or whatever. Many people think that means the plant must be in that much water. This is actually the maximum depth the plant can take. Most of these do better the less water. Even planted in the yard many of these plants will do well. Here in Phoenix many kinds of "pond plants" are used in yards. This is because "pond plant" isn't really a very good term... "vernal pool plant" would be better. They've adapted to living in standing water and also dry periods when there's no water which is what a vernal pool is. So knowing this can make your life easier, more options. Plants inside the pond = more work. So reducing them will be less work in the future. You can put some of these into pots around the edge of the pond, or in the ground, or switch to other kinds of plants around the edge. Gives you the same lush look with way less work and the pond appears much larger. Here are some pics of a pond I built in San Jose CA to demonstrate. No plant is inside the pond. And here the pot on the left is a "pond plant" called Horsetail Rush. It's a foam pot with no drainage hole, soil from the yard. This plant, like most "pond plants" can be very invasive, but no problem in a pot. And no drainage holes means no straining from leaking water (the pot on the right need drainage and therefore a catch pan under it). Go on vacation for a week or two the pot is fine with no watering. When it's time to divide it's no big deal.

The old house isn't under contract yet... that's why I'm being hasty about getting them out asap. I don't want any misconceptions. I dug up approx. 30 or so yesterday afternoon. Fortunatly a pretty good amount of labels were still in the ground so I brushed around them until I found the eyes poking out and snatched them up. Everything was going fine at the begining because I started with the most recent gardens but quickly ran out of big enough pots on the older Hostas. Silly me... I forgot Hostas grow out not down, doh! Some of them really took off since I planted them last spring! I also noticed the ones I received from swaps were more rooted out then the purchased plants planted around the same time. (Note to self: participate in more swaps here!) So far so good but I'm not taking all of them. I'll leave the doubles and some of the Tiara's behind, often when I order they throw in the Tiara's as gifts anyways.

I have two maples that look the same right now, along with many other plants in my yard. I spoke with someone at the nursery about it and was told we had a moth infestation that occurred due to a warm spring (happens about once every 17 years or so). They told me they're fine and next year everything will look great. I can't say for certain it's the same thing, but you may want to talk to someone at your local nursery about it, they'll probably have a better idea about what is going on in your area.

Having no formal training/education in horticulture, I could be wrong, but as I understand it, a dormant plant is just that, dormant. There is no active growth in the roots, stems or leaves. This is why barerooted trees are given away during the cooler months. So that they are already in-ground when the soil warms enough for them to resume growth. As such, transplanting a dormant crape myrtle in Decmber shouldn't be much different than transplanting in March and could even be better. Transplanting in March could mean you interrupt the tree while it is 'waking up'. The danger, I think, is that when people transplant a dormant plant in winter, they water like they transplanted an actively growing plant and so they end up rotting the roots away before Spring arrives. But again, I guess I could be wrong. Perhaps someone with more formal training can chime in.