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June Meeting Saturday, June 3
6:00 PM - ? At
Dave & Claudia Peebler’s
1024 N Wisteria Dr., Derby
(In Derby, Rock Rd. to St. James (big waterfall), East to
Timberleaf Dr., South to Timber Lane, turns into
Wisteria Dr.)
KOI FACTS & SOME MYTHS & TRUTHS
Dave has been keeping koi for over 25 years and is passionate about them. He has been anxious to talk to us about koi. So this month, he and Claudia are hosting the club. This should be a very interesting presentation. We’ll have our normally fantastic potluck buffet. Please bring a main dish and a side or dessert and lawn chairs. Paper plates and plastic forks are provided, but you are also welcome to bring your own plates and service Drinks will be provided
UPCOMING EVENTS June 2-4: Master Gardener Tour Jun 3: KPS Meeting - Peeblers Jun 17-18: KPS Water Garden Tour Jul 1: KPS Meeting – Beverages Jul 9: McBride Koi Road Trip Aug 5: KPS Meeting - Lanes Sept 2: KPS Meeting Sept 9: OKC Pond Tour Oct 7: KPS Meeting Nov 4: KPS Auction Dec 2: KPS Holiday Party
WELCOME NEW MEMBERS
Danny Rucker Eric Morrow
Norman & Lois Carr Randy Newby
`` President: Mike Kandt 838-6681, [email protected]
Vice-President: Wanita Wright, 733-6626, [email protected] Treasurer: Larry Determann 945-0017, [email protected] Secretary: Susan Kandt, 838-6681, [email protected] Newsletter Editor: Mike Kandt 838-6681, [email protected] Webmaster: Wayne Determann, [email protected]
FROM THE PRESIDENT By Mike Kandt Once again, our plant swap at Kansas Natural Stone was great. A good turn out with some new members. Gene Schellenberg with Kansas Natural Stone donated $100 as a door prize that was won by Danny Lawson. Congrats, Danny. Lots of plants exchanged. The June meeting will be at the home of Dave and Claudia Peebler in Derby. Dave has been keeping koi for over a quarter century and is pretty knowledgeable about them. He will talk about some general Facts, Myths and Truths about the fish. I know you will leave knowing more about koi. The pond tour is two weeks after the meeting: June 17-18. By the time you receive this, the maps should be in the garden centers for sale. Remember that members can get their free map at the first garden, Barbara & Tim McKee’s, 1515 Willow Lane in Spring Acres, by showing their membership card. We have some super gardens, so plan to attend. An Alex’s Lemonade Stand where you can purchase a refreshing drink and support the cure for child cancer will be set up at the McKee’s and Botanica. Thanks to Wanita Wright, who has worked tirelessly to put this tour together; Darla Whipple-Frain for the graphics; Susan Kandt for the writing and proofing; and Ron Williams, who worked very hard to get advertisers and promote the tour. In July, we will meet at the home of Rick and Cathy Beverage, August at Gail Lane’s, and October at Hong’s, where we will hear about bee-keeping. We are planning a car caravan road trip to McBride’s Koi in Neosho, MO, on Friday, July 28, and to the Oklahoma City water garden tour on Saturday, September 9. Contact Wanita if you want to join us on either of these trips. So we have a full summer planned. I hope you can join us. The club usually has a pump and hoses to loan to members for pond cleaning. Unfortunately, while using the pump to clean my pond, the cord developed a short. I will try to get it fixed, and, that failing, will get a new one. Nevertheless, it will be possibly a month before we’ll have a pump to loan out again. Hope that doesn’t throw a bind into your cleanup schedules.
June 2017
ADVERTISING RATES Business Card Size Ad (about 2" x 3 ½"): $15 per 3-month period; $50 per year Quarter-Page Ad (about 3 ½" x 4 ½"): $30 per 3-month period; $100 per year Half-Page Ad (about 5" x 7 ½"): $60 per 3-month period; $200 per year Full-Page Ad (8 ½” x 11"): $400 per year
Did you know… Oxygen dissolved in water is temperature- dependent; warm summer water may hold only half as much dissolved oxygen as cold water .... wcw
Wednesday, May 24th would have been Linda William's 69th birthday. Ron is honoring this special day by being a 'half-day sponsor on KUMW, 89.1 FM. What this means is that between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. they read a special message on station breaks that he’s written to honor her. It is also Delores Bean's and Bob Dylan's birthday, good company to be in-right?
SWAP SHOP If you have articles, plants or fish to sell or give away, let me know at 838-6681 or [email protected]
Stone for Sale: See Photo. $100 make offer. Randy Bennett [email protected]
WATER PLANTS
(by Mike Kandt)
Water Mint Mentha aquatica Mentha aquatica is a perennial flowering plant in the mint family Lamiaceae. Water mint grows around water and is easy to recognise by its hemispherical or almost spherical inflorescence. Despite its name, the species is not limited to damp soil – sometimes it even grows on relatively dry patches beside fields and roads. The species’ habitat extends through Europe to northern Africa and western Asia, and it has travelled along with people to North and South America, Australia and certain Atlantic islands. It has been spread deliberately, because fresh water mint stems make a nice herbal tea. A tea made from the leaves has traditionally been used in the treatment of fevers, headaches, digestive disorders and various minor ailments. It is also used as a mouthwash and a gargle for treating sore throats, ulcers, bad breath etc. The leaves are harvested as the plant comes into flower and can be dried for later use. The essential oil in the leaves is antiseptic, though it is toxic in large doses. Growing form:
Perennial herb. Rhizome- creeping, with long runners. Full sun to shade. Hardy to zones 6 - 11
Height:
12–25 in. Stem-erect, ascending, unbranched–branched, 4-edged, hairy–glabrous, often dark reddish.
Flower:
Lavender to violet-red, approx 0.2 in. long, 4-lobed. Flowering time: July–August. Strong minty fragrance.
Planting depth: Top of the pot should be 0-3" below the water surface.
WATER GARDEN TOUR UPDATE
By Wanita Wright The maps (tickets) are being printed and will be distributed to 4 vendors only: Hong’s, Johnson’s (both locations), Scenic, and Tails & Scales in Derby. They will be in the vendor outlets by the time you receive this newsletter. Maps will NOT be mailed to members. Remember that members can get their free map at the June KPS meeting or at the first tour garden, Barbara & Tim McKee’s, 1515 Willow Lane in Spring Acres by showing their membership card. If you don’t have your card, you will need to pay $10 for the map. VOLUNTEERS STILL NEEDED: Several people to man the map table Saturday and/or Sunday, and people to help with the two lemonade stands both Saturday and Sunday at the McKee’s and Botanica. Please contact Wanita at 733-6626 or [email protected].
The website PASSWORD
has changed to
bullfrog
SPRINGTIME STORMS
By Mike Kandt Late spring and early summer in Kansas mean storms. These can wreak havoc on your beautiful ponds and water gardens. In some instances, they can even be deadly to your fish. Spring storms usually bring wind, rain, and sometimes hail and loss of power. Wind is a Kansas problem, even when it is not storming. Tall plants will blow over and dump soil and gravel in a clean pond. Wind will also blow in all variety of leaves and sticks from nearby trees and shrubs. These can clog the filters, pumps, and skimmers and add nutrients to the water as they decay. The solution is to remove leaves, sticks, and debris as soon as possible after a storm. A long-handled skimmer net is a helpful tool for this job. Plant tall plants in wide pots and anchor with bricks or stones if they tend to blow over. The rain is not a bad thing, but it can mess up the water a little. The rain falling through our nitrogen-rich atmosphere picks up some of that nitrogen. As it falls in the pond, the nitrogen can be a great fertilizer for algae. Frequently after a storm, your pond water is murky. That can be dirt washed in from the edges or a small algae bloom. The dirt will settle to the bottom, and the algae will usually go away in a few days as the plants and bacteria consume the nitrogen.
Hail is another story. We have seen heavy hail storms kill entire ponds of fish. This has happened in small (less than 500-gallon) and shallow (less than 18”-deep) ponds. We’ll never know the exact cause of death in these cases, but the sudden shock of nitrogen-laden ice cubes in the pond probably created thermal shock, nitrogen stress, possible oxygen depletion from hail-beaten leaves in the water, or maybe the fish just got bonked on the head with a large hail stone. Larger, deeper ponds will normally have enough water volume that the hail shock is minimized. But small ponds such as the preformed containers, front-door ponds, or containers with fish should be covered with a plastic tarp if you anticipate hail. Be sure to tie
down the tarp with bricks or stakes to keep it from blowing away in the wind. Plants are usually not at risk, although a hail storm can shred water lily leaves badly. Don’t worry. The plants will likely recover. But the shredded leaves should be removed before they yellow and die. Loss of power is also a possibility. This can shut off your pumps and aerators. If this happens, you usually have lots more things to worry about than the pond. Depending on your fish load, the fish will probably be fine for several days. Stop feeding them to limit waste production. If you can get a generator going, try to at least plug in your pond aerator. It won’t take much electricity but will really help the fish.
The KOI CHRONICLES By Wanita Wright
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FROGS AND TOADS?
Courtesy The Water Garden Society of Oklahoma City.
FISH TALES
by Susan Kandt
FROM GROUNDLING TO POTHEAD:
THIS HOSTAHOLIC GARDENS UP No, guys – not THAT kind of pothead. I’m talking gardening here. So get your minds out of the pot bongs and into garden pots, okay? Yeah, I can hear some of you out there now. I confess I’ve been known to voice my lack of enthusiasm, somewhat vehemently, for gardening in pots. Quite simply, ever since I discovered the hobby of sticking growy things into the ground, the idea of putting plants into pots has never appealed to me. So people who have known me for awhile may be a little surprised that this column is going to be all about… …TA DAA! My new obsession with container gardening! Well, obsession may be the wrong word. I still prefer to see green things growing upward and onward out of the ground, just like Mother Nature clearly intended. After all, had she wanted us to plant her leafy children in containers, she’d have waved her magic wand long ago and caused pots to grow out of the ground every spring right along with the daffodils, right? I mean, house plants and annuals are one thing, but perennials? In containers? Bah humbug. So “tolerance” may be a better word for my new thing with garden pots than “obsession.” I’m the first to admit, my initial and continuing interest in gardening has come about via my love of shade. I’m telling you, I have absolutely no desire to work or even stroll the grounds on a hot, muggy day with the sun beating down on my head. Call me a vampire, but that’s just never been my cup of tea. So once I heard the term “shade gardening,” I was in. More a fan of foliage than flowers, I started planting ferns, then discovered hostas, and overnight I was smitten. So I dragged Mike along to the first meeting of the new hosta club that had formed here in Doo Dah, and a hostaholic was born. My introduction to container gardening goes back to the year 2008. Mike and I attended the American Hosta Society’s national convention in St. Louis that year, along with a few other members from our local club. One of the seminar speakers was a guy whose name I can’t remember, but he was a big scholarly cheese in the world of gardening. And the focus of his presentation was growing hostas in pots. What?! Just as soon as I grasped that the man seriously advocated growing hostas, of all things, in containers instead of the ground, I was on the verge of standing up and walking out. Hostas in pots? Whoever heard of such a thing? Sounded more like decorating than gardening to me. And I can’t imagine that his presentation alone persuaded a whole lot of people to abandon ground and switch over en masse to container gardening, because his slides showed all his hostas in smallish pots arranged in rows on ugly metal shelving units on his driveway. According to his logic, this was great because his shelving units were on wheels, and all he had to do come winter was roll the whole shootin’ match into the garage. In the language of Yoda, not impressed was I. His “hosta gardens” looked like a display at the local WalMart.
Pots in my Secret Garden
Chisholms’ potted ‘Francee’
My “mini” hosta garden
Chisholms’ deck pots
But in the last few years, even with a 2-1/2-acre property, I’m sad to report that I’ve run out of room to plant shade plants. Between the tree root problem and the loss of shade canopy from dead trees in both our yard and the one across the fence, I’m finding it impossible to cram one more hosta into a suitable place in the yard. And simply put, I’m too old and devoid of energy to carve out even more planting beds than we already have to maintain. So I reluctantly opened my mind to thoughts of…ugh…putting new acquisitions in containers. God knows, not buying any more hostas was simply not an option. The first thing I learned was that if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure they winter over out there. After all, who wants to spend big $$$ for hostas year after year, only to have them go belly up by the time spring rolls around? And one thing I’ve actually learned, despite the lesson from the dude in St. Louis, is that hostas don’t tolerate being treated like tropical plants. They’re meant to go dormant in winter, and if you go hauling them inside as soon as it’s cold, they’re likely to thank you by packing up their rhizomes and bidding you “hosta luego.” So between Mike and me, we’ve come up with what seems to be a workable solution. We plant medium to large hostas in huge (at least as huge as we can find) lightweight plastic pots and our minis in smaller pots, and arrange them among the “groundling” hostas in our beds. Then in the fall, we load them up in a cart behind the garden tractor and drive them over to their winter quarters. We arrange the pots along a fence behind our wooded area (Mike calls it a jungle) north of the drive. Once the leaves start falling (and we get a LOT of leaves in the fall), Mike mows them up, bags them, and dumps them over the hosta pots. By the time he’s done, you can’t even see a trace of them under their mountain of leaves. Then we ignore them all winter and let them hibernate in peace. Come spring, once we see the potted hostas starting to pop up through the leaves, we brush the leaves off the tops of the pots and start watering them. If there’s danger of a late frost, we go out and pile the leaves back over the tops of the pots and wait until spring gets serious. Once that’s a given, we load the pots back up into the cart and haul them around the yard to their respective summer homes.
This system is working well. The hostas are surviving the winters and thriving. So I was feeling pretty smug about how great they look until we attended our May meeting of the hosta club in the yard of Dave and Janie Chisholm. Their yard has always been my favorite in Wichita, but it just keeps getting better and better. Whereas I’ve finally embraced and tolerated the use of containers in the garden, the Chisholms have honed it into an absolute art. They have a home in College Hill with one of those smallish but beautiful yards shaded under a canopy of old, stately trees. And their gardens are nothing short of gardening-magazine perfect; in fact, I’ve rarely seen gardens in a magazine that outdo theirs. I call their yard a cottage garden, but instead of beds bursting with flowers in the sun, theirs are overflowing with ferns, hostas, and other shade plants nestled into cool, shady beds accented with garden art. And talk about having mastered the art of container gardening! Everywhere you look, huge hostas are overflowing their pots, mini hostas are lined up in planter boxes, and they’re all arranged with a designer’s eye (that would be Janie’s)
Don’t forget. You can also do water gardening in containers. …Mike
throughout the back yard beds and clustered on and around their comfy, shaded deck. I asked Janie how long ago she delved headfirst into container gardening, and she said about five or so years ago. But the gardens look so established and orderly you’d swear they’ve looked exactly like that for twenty years. She embraced pots for the same reason I did – she ran out of room. But instead of hauling her heavy ceramic pots to winter quarters, she and Dave leave them in place and bury them in leaves right where they are. Judging from the results, I’d say their system works just as well as ours does. So, inspired by gardens like these (you can see the Chisholms’ yard on the June Master Gardeners tour), I’ve gone from being strictly a “groundling” gardener to experimenting with “pothead” gardening, too. Both have their place, and the pots add verticality to your beds that lends interest and draws the eye up from the otherwise flat garden floor. Give it a try. Not just with hostas but all kinds of plants. Believe me, if this old-schooler can learn new tricks, anybody can. Have a ball “gardening up” – in more ways than one!
Susan
ROAD TRIPS (Car Pool/Caravan)
Friday, July 28 to McBride Koi in Neosho, MO. A koi farm with thousands of beautiful fish. Check out on line at www.mokoi.com. Saturday, September 9 to Oklahoma City/Edmond water garden tour. Wanita will make arrangements for tickets & lunch. More info as we get it. Please let Wanita know if you would like to go. Please contact Wanita at 733-6626 or [email protected].
Kansas Pond Society 5615 N. Sullivan Wichita, KS 67204
