- Man this pond sure does look rough.
And it looks like I'm the only one here
at the homestead to clean it up.
Sure wish there was somebody that could help.
(ethereal music playing)
(chime rings)
- You think I leave the homestead Jacques?
I don't, I'm here to help.
And today it's the Pond Planting Party.
- Let's do it!
(rock guitar playing)
- Jacques thinks I would leave my precious pond.
Little does he know I was lying in wait,
just waiting for him to complain.
And we came bearing gifts.
So we have all sorts of new pond plants.
Some new ,some old actually.
- Yep.
- And we're gonna do an audit of the pond.
See, what's going on.
Say hello to the coy and see if we can
get this thing looking really good.
I'm gonna go change.
Jacques is gonna run you through
some of the new plants that we just got.
- So I'm probably gonna say most of these wrong
but I'm gonna use the common name.
We got Golden Sword Rush.
It's a nice tall plant.
Thinking that would look really cool
in the back there where the water comes out.
And maybe some of this squiggly guy here.
This is the Blue Corkscrew rush.
So I think we're triple rushed up here.
Doesn't look the happiest right here,
but this is what we had before they got overtaken
by that red plant that I'm blanking on the name on.
This is the Hawthorne.
It kind of smells like vanilla which was really interesting.
And then this guy is actually a Canna.
So this is Canna Longsword.
And Canna is one of those classic plants
people normally grow ornamentally.
I had no idea it was a water plant, so that's really cool.
But we got a little bit of cleanup to do first.
If you take a look at the pond itself,
what we have here is a lot of string algae.
So I think I'll probably get like a planting medic
or something, something light
and try to scoop up some of this algae as best we can,
just to give it a little bit of a refresh.
And then we're pretty much good to start popping these in.
I'm gonna start by putting in the easiest plants here
which I think we're mislabeled as a Water Lettuce,
but they have these like little bladders.
So they actually float.
So I'm pretty sure if I do this,
(plant "wee" sound effect)
(plopping sound)
that's all there is to it.
(plant "wee" sound effect)
(plopping sound)
- Here we are.
I've got my Felco 322s to make short work
of this guy right here.
Jacque's got a leaf rake.
(both laughing)
- [Jacques] Today, it's gonna be an algae rake.
I'm gonna just kind of get in there
and see if I could scoop out any of the string algae.
- Look at the leaf matting here, or the root matting.
- Oh my God.
- Crazy. - - An actual mat.
- [Host] It's a true mat.
So I think what I'd like to do is
cut this down by a significant amount.
And it's actually like we knew,
kind of drowning out this Water Hawthorne here.
- [Jacques} Yeah, I remember.
- [Host] So see the, see the pot?
- [Jacques] Oh yeah.
- I can't actually access this pot.
So it's all in here, but I don't think it's making it.
- Okay, well this is working.
Definitely got some algae.
- [Host] So there's our Water Hawthorne.
(Jacques laughing)
- Rest in peace.
It got usurped and taken over.
- [Host] So I'm gonna just start cutting this out here.
- [Jacques] So watch this.
- When I hit the bottom here,
you'll see a bunch of air bubbles from the photosynthesis.
(Jacques makes bubbling sounds)
- [Host] That's really cool.
- [Jacques] I may kind of scrub the rocks a little bit.
- I'm actually debating, removing this plant entirely.
- [Jacques] Yeah?
- It's so prolific that it's just, it's gonna destroy.
- I guess if you cut it down to literally one branch,
it'll still be,
- [Host] It'll still come back.
'Cause here it is.
Oh no this is the Water Hawthorne tag.
(Jacques laughing)
The remnants.
- I like planting something.
(tango music playing)
(cat meows)
- So here's this guy.
(Jacques sniffs)
Pond smell does not have that same hit, but it smells good.
- [Host] Doesn't it, hits different in a bad way.
- So hopefully rush can survive a root cut.
- [Jacques] Honestly, I don't know anything
about aquatic plants,
but they seem to be pretty tolerant.
- They seem to be more hardy don't they?
- Yeah, they just want water.
(upbeat music playing)
(rocks rattling)
- We have officially solved the top section.
Need to let that grow in.
On to our lilies.
So Jacques, what are you doing over here?
- Think I'm gonna just kind of
come in and try to clean up some of these
rotting dead leaves.
Just to give it a little more room to breathe.
- Yeah the lilies, we had a fantastic season of lilies
and they're actually still going.
You can see this one almost is closed for the day,
but they have come back a bit.
They used to actually spread almost
into the middle of the pond.
And I think what's going on is just, you know
their season is coming to an end.
Their super productive season.
(bag rattles)
And we need to prune those back
and honestly set a couple more up in different areas.
'Cause the more surface you have covering
the happier your fish are gonna be 'cause they feel safer.
But also the less evaporation's gonna come in.
As it's summer right now and we have water restrictions,
we really wanna be conscious of that.
What's that?
- I don't know.
- Dead flower or are those eggs?
- I think so.
- Of what though?
- I don't know.
- Ooh it's like jelly. - - It's jelly.
(tongue wiggles)
- So this is a Canna.
This is Canna Longwood raw.
I don't, unfortunately I can't really get these roots out.
So I'm gonna have to rip the bottom off.
So this is gonna go in the Aquascape Aquatic grow bag
and we're gonna use Aquascape's potting medium as well.
So their growing media, their potty media is perfect
for lilies but should also work quite well
for these particular aquatics.
Like this Canna here.
So I'll put a little base layer down.
No amendments needed, it's ready to go.
In we are with our Canna.
I think again, I wanna keep with that
tall on the back theme.
So I'm gonna slide by you here, Jacques.
I'm gonna go in right about here.
- [Jacques] Oh yeah, that should look great.
- [Host] And that'll get a lot more solid once.
Okay, so the question here on these lilies is
where do we want one that has this beautiful blue flower?
'Cause we have yellow and pink over there
and we need to cover a little more space here.
So I think we had a lot of success, Jacques,
placing it on this like lowered shelf here.
- [Jacques] Yeah.
- So I'm thinking actually right about here.
- Oh, okay.
- Should look really good.
- And then this, I wonder if something could sit there.
- It is gonna take a little time
for this to reset itself 'cause,
- Yeah
- this is not looking super, super healthy.
But all I know is last time we put these straight in
and they did end up coming back to life.
- Oh yeah.
I'm gonna remove this guy.
I don't think it's really doing much for us here.
So we've got the blue there,
and I think we could probably get away, Jacque,
with right underneath in front of this Papyrus.
- I totally think that would look great.
- Yeah.
- That one, I can't remember if
that one's like a pinker one.
- Right in about there I think would look amazing.
- [Jacques] Oh yeah.
That's gonna look really nice.
It's cool how far these leads reach out
from where the pot is.
- [Host] We'll start to see honestly, when this grows again
we'll actually start to see it cover the entire middle.
- [Host] Tell you, nothing like getting sloppy in the pond.
Look at this.
Chuck this in the compost pile.
(yeet sound effect)
- Woo!
- Ah, ooh - - You got bee'd?
I think I got bee'd.
- [Jacques] I think something was just
crawling on your hand.
- Woo!
- [Jacques] I don't know what it was.
- I think I just got - - Might have been a wasp -
- Something hit me deep.
I'm bleeding.
- [Jacques] I saw something.
- Oh actually I'm, oh yeah there's a stinger.
Ah!
Ooh.
- So how about this, Jacque?
We have the new planting plan.
It's gonna grow in pretty soon guys.
But what I'm gonna do is turn this back on.
Let's see how this looks
and I think we are gonna need to plant those Water Lettuce.
- Oh yeah.
- Make sure they don't fly around.
- Ooh!
(mellow music playing)
- It's been a couple days.
We wanted to give a quick reset.
Let the pond do its thing.
And I have to say, Jacques, the Coy are out,
the lilies are pumping.
This beautiful sort of violet one is coming in.
It's looking really good. - - Yeah, it's real nice.
I think we did a pretty good job here.
There's a couple changes I might make.
I think these floaters need to be secured
in a little bit better way.
- Yeah.
- But having a lily there and having a lily there
eventually, especially once spring comes back around
and they start to really grow.
I think you'll see most of this get covered.
- And they're all different colors now.
- Different colors. - - That's gonna be amazing.
- [Host] And these coy are just sucking up
some of that algae.
It's really wild, but I I haven't really fed the coy much
here at the homestead.
- Yeah.
- They've been mostly feeding off the algae
and sizing up pretty well.
So I'm just gonna keep doing it.
If it works, it works.
I'm really curious, Jacques, to see
how this stuff starts to grow in.
Maybe this stuff over here,
we put the Water Hawthorne right down there.
- It looks great.
- But guys, now we need your help.
This is a call to arms.
What do we put around the pond?
We already figured out the inside
but please comment down below.
What should we put around the pond?
And with that said,
good luck in a garden and keep on growing.
- You think I leave the homestead Jacque?