Grounds Maintenance Tips

GET READY FOR THE SUMMER

What could be more beautiful, more relaxing, more pleasurable? And much of that pleasure is derived from taking care of your pond -maintaining the balance of the ecosystem and making sure your pond fish and pondplants stay alive and healthy. This Ground Maintenance Tips are aimed to assist you through summer.

Because water is less able to hold oxygen as its temperature increases, the cleanest of ponds may experience low oxygen levels during hot summer days. Make sure, therefore, that fountains, waterfalls, and aerators are working especially well during hot weather. Don't wait until your fish are gasping for oxygen at the surface of the water. Biological filters should be checked and/or cleaned every 4-6 weeks.
Feed pond fish no more than twice daily. Once a day is preferred so that fish food nutrients do not cause heavy algae growth.

LAWN MAINTENANCE

Whatever your preferred gardening style, the lawn is likely to play a key role in your design. As well as creating an attractive outdoor carpet, making a restful green contrast with the bright colours of your borders, lawns also have a functional role. Grass must be hardwearing, especially if you have children or
pets, and needs to look fresh and healthy for as much of the year as possible. With a little management, and minimal skill, this is easy to achieve all year round. In winter, when the ground is saturated, or even frozen, healthy grass on a well-drained lawn will look greener and will stand up well to the tramp of passing feet.
In summer, the more vigorously the grass grows, the longer it stays green when drought comes and the more resistant it will be to diseases. Grass will need mowing about once a week in good growing conditions but less
frequently in early spring and late autumn, or during droughts. Unless mild weather occurs, you need not mow at all from November to mid or late March.

GENERAL GROUNDS MAINTENANCE
• Mowing is the most frequent lawn care activity.
• Set the blades or your mower to cut at 1in to 1.5in for general purpose, hardwearing lawns. Set the blades to about 0.5in to 1in for finer, more ornamental but less hardwearing turf.
• Mow when the grass needs cutting - rather than slavishly every week removing roughly half an inch to an inch of grass as you go.