Water Lilies
Stop fertilizing hardy lilies when there are no more flowers produced. The leaves will gradually become smaller and you will notice there are fewer of them. Keep trimming the spent leaves as they yellow. The last leaves of the year will not reach the surface of the water. These should be left on the plant. The pot can be left in the bottom of the pond all winter. Tropical lilies will continue to bloom much longer than the hardies. Keep fertilizing them every 2 weeks until they stop blooming all together. They will not survive the winter so you can remove them.

Marginal (bog) plants
Trim off dead growth as needed in the fall to maintain a nice appearance. When all the foliage is brown, trim back entire plant to about 2” above the water level. If you like the looks of the browned foliage it will not hurt the plant to leave it on there until spring. If you have any tropical marginal plants such as Elephant Ear or Papyrus, you can take them into the house or garage for the winter.

Floating plants
Hyacinth and lettuce will not survive the north Georgia winter. Take these plants out of the water as soon as they get brown so that they don’t end up on the bottom of the pond with the leaves making algae food for next spring!

Submerged plants
Anacharis and hornwort should be left in the pond over the winter. Both are hardy in north Georgia.

Fall is a good time to clean out your pond if needed. A good rule of thumb is that if your pond has more than one inch of sludge on the bottom, you may need a cleaning. The reason we like to clean in the fall instead of spring is that the pond water is not cold. You can get in there while the weather and the water are warm! If you don't want to get in the pond, we still have muck vacs available to clean the bottom with ease!

Netting
Keep the leaves out of your pond with pond netting from Wakoola. We carry a light weight, very strong netting in 14’ width. We will cut the length to order.

Barley
Now is the time to change the barley bale in your pond so that it has time to start decomposing before the water gets cold. We also have several barley products this fall to help you get a jump start on string algae next spring.

Bacteria
Use beneficial bacteria each month of the year in Georgia. We recommend Bugs To Go single packs or Microbe Lift Autumn Prep to help keep the biological balance in your pond.