Cutting Roots and Cleaning a Pond

by Dawn
(Rogers, AR, US)

We have a 2' deep pond we inherited when we bought our new house. It has so much stringy algae attached to the side and leaves that we can't get out. There are two small koi in the pond. We thought we would wait until it got warm, drain it take the lily pads out and put them in a bucket and power wash the inside of the pond. We found out that the lily roots are very long and attached to each other and now the plants are blooming. It just started to get warm here in NW Arkansas. Can you cut the roots some and take the plants out and put them back in the pond at this point.

Doug says that it's much better to do this kind of pruning in the spring when the lilies are dormant. You're not going to be very happy digging them around after they're well and truly growing/flowering. Wait till next spring now and then you can dig them up - hack away at the roots with almost no chance of hurting the plant.

And string algae can be controlled in different ways - check out the algae control page using the left hand navbar.