Although we can't complain about the winter we had this year mother nature is playing tricks on us again. Signs of spring and warm weather and now snow tomorrow??  What gives?

While walking through the garden you can see signs of spring trying to emerge.   The fish in the pond will venture towards the water surface when the sun is beating down on them but when the air changes back to cold they hid.  Its been an unusually warm March and April than in the past.

Mother Nature has a way of tricking even the most experienced water gardener. We finally have a week of warm temperatures, and things are coming alive in our ponds. After months of rain, sleet, snow and ice we are all ecstatic. Armed with our pond gloves, waders and nets, we set out to begin cleaning our ponds. Throwing in some MicrobeLift Spring & Summer, clean our filters and hope algae doesn't start to grow until we can get some plants in.  We check temperatures and think it is time to add some plants. Seems safe, after all the temperatures are rising. Place our orders, plants arrive and all seems well. Then out of nowhere (actually Canada), comes a cold front with freezing nighttime temperatures. We frantically remove our floating plants, new bog plants and place them in the garage or on the covered porch for the next couple of days.  Then, temperatures rise again and out the plants go again. We try our best to ship the plants when the time is right for planting in your planting zone. Unfortunately, we can not control Mother Nature and her unpredictable ways.   Just, remember when receiving new plants in the Spring to keep a watchful eye on the temperatures,  in case Mother Nature tries to play a trick on you!

We've been so busy taking orders and shipping orders, we just haven't had time to write on the blog as we should.  It has been a whirlwind of a spring so far.  Those in planting zones 8 on the west coast  have had an usually cold spring and should have had their plants in a month ago.  But thanks to good old mother nature, they are still waiting  for their normal warm temperatures.  Hopefully things have finally warmed up.  We held up shipping their plants and it became a daily routine of checking their 10 day forecast to see if they could climb out of the 50 degree weather they were experiencing.  That was their high!  For those of us in the lower planting zones, we should be able to begin putting our plants in the pond, mother nature cooperates  for a couple days and then slips in a few fridgid night time lows in the 30s and 40s.  What do we do?

Just remember, we need to play it safe and make sure the weather is going to cooperate and keep our new plants protected from the cold.  If we put water lettuce in too early, the leaves will turn from their nice green to white.....water temperatures too cold.  Water hyacinths turn brown......again too cold.  Play it safe with your newly purchased plants and if you think the weather is still too cold,  put them in a container and keep them indoors for a few days.  If it is warm during the day, go ahead and place them outside to get the sun.  I would rather play it safe and protect the plants, then to take a chance of them dying and having to replace them. We do our best to ship the plants when it is safe for you to put them in your pond. We watch the weather highs and lows across the nation and try to ship the plants accordingly. Unfortunately, those cold fronts coming down from Canada, make it somewhat difficult to second guess Mother Nature!

Next month hopefully we will all be sitting by our ponds thinking how nice everything looks and forget about the crazy spring we just had.