| The following is a guest article by Sean Patton, the CEO of Stocking Savvy Environmental Consulting. The ongoing severe drought this year has led pond practitioners to employ new design approaches to help improve plant survival rates in the long term. Extreme water fluctuations from high to low water levels in our stormwater ponds are hard for most emergent plants to withstand. The use of Cypress and Pop Ash trees planted at or below the water line in ponds with more than two feet of water change would improve plant survival rates with more shade and provide additional erosion control. High levels of evaporation that dry out pond beds can kill the native aquatic plants typically used in ponds like pickerelweed, duck potato and spikerush. The best results have been in ponds with natural or planted groundcovers that helped to reduce the drying effect in lake bottoms. This includes ludwiga, baby tears, and other semi-aquatic ground covers. Smartweeds, marsh pinks, beak sedges, toadflax, and other plants work best in ponds that have wide edges with fewer swings in water levels or naturally shallow littoral shelves. Drought or high water level changes are hard to predict and they can affect plant viability during installation. A good idea is to ask communities to take weekly photos of the water line prior to installation in case changes or delays in the planting schedule are needed. That’s important to pond services companies because once harvested, plants have to be installed right away and for growers that’s a two-week planning cycle. Even with No Mower Zones and emergent vegetation in the water, long term erosion is still a major concern for pond communities. To help, Stocking Savvy encourages the use of trees with a few shrubs around them between homes as an attractive and effective long-term solution. Our experience shows that the trees keep erosion channels from forming from roof runoff and the surrounding shrubs protect the tree trunk, offer more erosion control with their woody roots and provide the added aesthetic effect of instant color. In effect, this plant arrangement acts as a taller No Mower Zone at the weakest point of the shoreline. Commercially available mowable ground covers include Florida betony, white top sedge, frogfruit, sunshine mimosa (higher up) and bacopa (flat water’s edge). Some good showy mix-ins include sea purslane (coastal saltier ponds) daisy fleabane and blue eye grass. No Mower Zones with just grass turf permit the introduction of so much torpedo grass that it lowers the success level of the pond program because of over-spraying and excessive mowing. With the continuing impact of climate change and the massive tree removal from ever-expanding development, Stocking Savvy is highly recommending that communities begin to plant more large-scale native trees to provide more shade to help lower rising temperatures, improve air humidity and biodiversity. To learn more about how Sean deals with the ongoing drought conditions, click on the following link: stockingsavvy@gmail.com or call him at (941) 500-2218. |
DESIGNING PONDS TO HANDLE DROUGHT
