Winding Down the Season

Here it is - almost October - and as expected, life at Totalily is starting to wind down. One of the most noticeable changes is that the employees (whom we consider to be dear friends) are all gone for the season and we miss them dearly. Their energy and enthusiasm truly keeps us going during the busy days of summer.

The silence is almost deafening, not only because it's quieter without them around, but we now occasionally turn the pond pumps off on the ever-cooler nights. With the cool rains and blustery winds these last few days, we'll also need to think about putting the temporary net over the pond someday soon. It never looks very nice, but it does really help cut down on our Spring start-up work.

Not sure what we're talking about? Here's a picture of our set-up (and you can also read more about it in our Autumn and Winter Maintenance handout). We'll take it all down once the majority of the leaves have fallen.

Another noticeable difference is that the greenhouses are completely empty now. The remaining marginals and lilies have all been moved to the rear propagation ponds to sleep away the winter months. It always looks so barren around here at this time of the year. What else can we expect?

We do still need to remove the MANY water hyacinths though before the frost hits them super hard and they sink to the bottom of the ponds. If we don't, they can actually give off a toxic amount of methane gas as they decompose under the snow and ice. We learned that the hard way one year when our fish population took a "hit" when we didn't remove the hyacinths in time. Please learn from our mistake!

Some folks try to overwinter their hyacinths inside under grow lights and/or in a warm room. We've tried that too, but it usually costs more to keep them toasty and happy than it is to simply replace them next year. Plus, they usually die just about the time Spring arrives. Sigh....yet another lesson learned. Such is the life of a ponderer, right?!?

However you spend them, we hope your Autumn pond days are enjoyable ones. If you need us, we'll still be here on weekends until the end of October. You can also always call during the week and leave a message and we'll get back to you ASAP. If you're on our eNews mailing list, keep watching your inboxes as we'll be sending out a notice someday soon announcing the details of yet two more great sales we'll be having before the end of the year.

Until we chat again......