October has certainly arrived. The frost on the ground the last several mornings is nature’s way of telling us winter is on the way. Embrace and enjoy the weather changes, because they’re coming anyway! Take a brisk walk, clean up lawns and flowerbeds and play in the leaves with the puppies. A little play mixed with work makes the perfect autumn combination. This month’s combination: ponds and pumpkins.

POND CLEANUP TIME
Pick a warm sunny day after the leaves from surrounding trees have fallen for your final pond clean-up of the season. Any time after the first frost, before the air and water are too chilly, is a good time to put the pond to bed for the season.
Turn off your pump and waterfalls for the clean-up. Raise the pump and use a steel brush to clean debris from the intake area to avoid clogging. Remove and clean bioifilter mats with a strong blast from the hose nozzle and replace after using a small fish net to scoop out any small collected debris.

Now it’s time to get in and raise the pots of hardy plants to the surface. Hip waders are useful for this if the water is getting cool. After raising the pots, cut off all leaves and growth down to the surface and discard the debris, remembering that water plants make great compost. Use care when cutting the growth off, you may find frogs burrowing in the mud or dense plants.They will be moving slowly now that it’s getting colder. I usually brush my gloved hand through the growth before beginning to cut to give them a chance to jump out.

Clean any collected algae from pot surfaces. Sink the trimmed pots in the deepest part of the pond to protect from freezing. Any plants that have outgrown their pots (water lilies are famous for this) can be divided and repotted, either now or in the spring. Remember to use pots with no holes in the bottoms to avoid dirt spilling into the pond. Discard floating plants such as water hyacinth and water lettuce. They are difficult to over-winter and easily replaced in spring. Underwater plants such as oxygenating arachnis may be left in the pond over the winter. Last winter was so mild that ours continued to grow all winter, keeping the water clear and exploding in rapid growth once the water turned warm in spring.

Some plants such as pickerel weed and cattails are notorious for “jumping” their pots and rooting in the bottom of the pond. These can be gently removed without damaging the liner and placed in pots or discarded. After trying cattails in the pond for a couple of years now, we are planning on removing them completely this fall, both potted and rooted in the rock bottom. They take over large areas of the pond and block the view in some places since they can grow to 3 or 4 feet tall.

After the plants are sunk and the floating plants removed, skim the bottom surface with a net or gloved hands to remove fallen leaves. Don’t get too energetic and scoop out all the accumulated silt, it balances the ecosystem and gives frogs and tadpoles extra places to winter over without freezing. Don’t worry if you don’t get all the leaves out, there will be more in the spring and you can get them then. If you have a filtering system, check the skimmer box and net bag often during the winter. We have found that leopard frogs in particular don’t burrow like bullfrogs and can be found collected in the skimmer area. We just take them out and put them in the pond, hoping they find a place to hide.

Turn the pump back on after a few hours of letting the water settle after stirring it up during cleaning. Stop feeding the fish if you haven’t already, they won’t need food again till spring. Even though they seem to beg you on those warmer fall days, don’t give in since they can’t digest food in cooler water temperatures. During the coldest part of the winter, don’t allow the surface to freeze solid, use a stock tank heater if there is a prolonged cold spell. If the surface does freeze, don’t bang on the ice to break it, the vibration can be damaging to the fish.

PUMPKIN TIME
Once the pond is cleaned up, you deserve a little fun — and what’s more fun than pumpkins? This is the time of year when thousands of pumpkins appear, seemingly mysteriously. Where have they been all summer? Who grows them? Arrange a family outing to a pumpkin patch near you. Some especially scenic destinations for fall day trips include Weston with its historic shops and restaurants and Louisburg, famous for delicious cider and fruits and vegetables in season. Maybe you prefer a large “grandaddy” pumpkin for carving and pie or several smaller ones for a varied display of ghosts and goblins on the porch for Halloween. We enjoy them all through November and have found that many pumpkin patches give them away after Halloween is over. For variety, try the white pumpkins this year, they’re great for carving and give a different look. An unexpected bonus: last winter, I put them on the compost pile and this year we had our own vines winding around the compost area. I let them go and we had a crop of about 8 pumpkins, both orange and white!

Robin Milliken is a Landscape Specialist and Master Gardener
The Master Gardener appears monthly in The Olathe Daily News.
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