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We are open every day including Easter Sunday. This week at the shop we have been preparing for a busy Bank Holiday weekend. The ponds have been stocked up with new Koi. No outlandish prices. Just great value for money quality fish. We have also just had a delivery of pond plants. Internet sales are back up and running. We have been busy up loading pictures, videos and creating the listings for each fish. We still have many more Koi at the shop and will be working hard over the coming weeks.  It does take time your patience is appreciated. It has often been said that plants can not be incorporated into a Koi pond. Large Koi can uproot delicate marginals and chew through lily pads. They will bury their noses into the pots, dump mouths full of gravel and soil over the bottom of your pond and give you nothing but work. However it certainly is possible to incorporate plants into Koi ponds, you just need the right plants and you need a strategy for keeping them Koi proofed.  If lilies are suitably dressed, most small to medium Koi will not be a threat. I made a video explaining how to do this a year or so ago and you will find it helpful.

This is a video I made a year or so ago. It has some tips on choosing and potting lilies. Please help support the channel, post a comment, thumbs up the video and subscribe to the channel. Thank you.

Another obstacle with a Koi pond is they can be deep and lack shelves suitable for planting.  You can buy floating plant pontoons, that you tether to the pond bottom or side. The plant’s roots hang down into the water and the foliage grows up and hangs over the side hiding the pontoon.   Floating pontoons are also great DIY projects. You can use 4” thick sheets of polystyrene and chop out holes to drop the plant pots in. Sturdy baskets can be hung from chains or brackets. It is even possible to attach baskets directly to the wall of the pond. With care you can screw through your pond liner and hold it securely with wall plugs and stainless screws. To make it watertight a thick splodge of aquarium silicon will be all that is needed. If the thought of piercing holes in the liner sends shivers down your spine there are many other possibilities. You can buy marginal plant bags that you stuff with soil and plants. They have a large flap on the top which is used to hang over the pond edge. You stack rocks or pebbles on the flap and the plants are supported of the bottom. Plants will grow on waterfalls or stream sections. You might decide to build an entirely separate pond that is fed with water from your main pond and returns over a cascade. If the fish can’t get near them, you’re safe. I am very surprised that more people with Koi ponds have not embraced the aquaponics movement that emerged a few years ago. Aquaponics systems grow food based plants and vegetables without soil, fish provide a source of nutrients and the plants help filter the water for the fish. How about a vertical living wall rich with plants and a cascade back into the pond? There is a multitude of options, limited only by the imagination. Thinking outside the box can lead to some amazing displays. A quick search on YouTube will soon give you lots of ideas about how you could design a system.  Plants, water and fish go together well. The combination can have positive effects on pond keeper too. Lots of research has demonstrated how exposure to nature improves your mood, reduces stress and anger and so on. Now it’s not all perfect, I know. You may have decided that plants are just not right for your pond and I totally understand.  Plants can be a problem when you need to treat your pond for parasites for example. The plants will absorb a percentage of the treatment and they can be a harbor or breeding ground for more parasites. Many plants can start to take over and have to be trimmed back, during winter when plants die back the resulting sediment will have to be processed by the pump and filter system or manually removed.    However I personally believe there are some real benefits if you can incorporate them into your pond in some way or another.

Take a look at this amazing pond. Customer invites me to have a look at his 30ft Koi pond. He has built his own filter and skimmer system. The plants and Koi are living in perfect harmony.

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