Ever since Dad built the lily pool at my request as a Mother’s Day present for my mom over 60 years ago, it has been largely neglected with only infrequent cleanings. In the last few years I’ve tried to routinely clean it using a device designed to vacuum leaves and dirt out of it. That helped but the water remained stubbornly turbid. I tried adding barley extract, which is supposed to help with that problem and did some, but didn’t really accomplish making the pool attractive to my satisfaction. Last summer I experimented with pumping maybe a third of the water out and then refilling with clean water. That made a big difference but with the clearer water I was able to see all of the crud on the sides and bottom. There are three planters that hold the lilies in the cloverleaf design and I’ve replaced the all-white lilies in two of the planters, one with a yellow and one with a pink. That gave us pretty nice blossoms but the lilies quickly overgrew the planters making it difficult to divide them properly. Attempting to solve this problem and give the pool a good cleaning, Joyce and I completely drained the pool, keeping the fish safe in a bait bucket, and removed all three lilies. We put the lilies in a washtub and extracted from each a short length of tuber with new leaves on the end. These we planted in plastic baskets about 10-12 inches square using fresh aquatic potting soil with a layer of pea gravel just thick enough to keep the potting soil from floating out. With the pool empty, we scrubbed all the surfaces with a stiff brush loosening up all the crud, rinsing it off the surfaces and bailing out the resulting cruddy water. We placed a basket in each planter, refilled the pool and put the fish back in. At least for now, the water is clear and the sides are clean. The baskets weigh far less than the dirt and rock we used previously in the planters and should make it much easier to repeat the cleaning each spring when we can just lift the baskets out, separate the lilies and re-plant them in fresh potting soil again. Time will tell if we get nice blossoms and get to see the goldfish more while cutting down on maintenance.
Speaking of maintenance, between the 80 mile an hour winds we had a couple of weeks ago which brought down a fresh crop of twigs and the bumper crop of mustard weeds that plagues the Panhandle, I’ve got my work cut out for me. The mustard is a cold weather weed that grows while it is too cold to get out and deal with it. When it starts to warm a little it really takes off and, along with henbit and other weeds, blankets the place in yellow and purple flowers. I started mowing this week, setting the mower lower than usual to cut the weeds as close as possible. The best I can hope for is to limit the seeding. Mowing doesn’t kill the weeds, of course. They’ll grow back and I’ll have to cut them again until they start dying back as it gets warmer and the grass takes over. Because of the twigs, I first have to clean an area I want to mow of any that are big enough to cause problems for the mower. Oh well, what else have I got to do.