I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving with family and friends, and of course, a delicious meal. 

I finally put all my plants to bed for the winter and covered the pond.  It looks bare, but the fish all seem happy, even with the cooler water.  It has been a long fall, so we have been lucky so far.  Normally this time of year, we have already had our first snow and temperatures well below 40 degrees.  Daytime temperatures have been  averaging around 45 degrees to 55 degrees, with a bit more sun then Ohio usually sees, this time of year. Lucky so far,  but what will winter bring.....

A couple of weeks ago,  I noticed I had a few lilies starting to get green, Aquatic For-Get-Me Nots  still blooming and Cannas that refuse to die back so I can store them for the winter......they all must be a bit confused.  Snow and more seasonable temperatures are forecast for the end of this week, that should send the rest of the plants, that have been hanging on into dormancy.

I read an interesting article about algae that I thought I'd share.  It mentioned putting barley straw in your pond during the winter to help control algae.  I put a couple barley bundles  in my pond, to see if it makes a difference in the spring.  Water gardeners will do almost anything to keep that nasty algae from growing.  As soon as temperatures begin to warm in the spring, before the water lilies send up their first few leaves, the algae seems to re-appear on the waterfalls, sides of the pond and in the stream beds.  Barley does not kill algae, it prohibits it from growing. From everything I have read, and talking to customers that use either the barley bundles, barley extract or barley straw pellets, it does the trick! Next spring....hopefully no more algae!