Floating Hyacinth Aquatic Plant Winter Care, Pennsylvania

Hyacinth: one of our most favorite tropical floating plants (and usually the only tropical plants we carry at all)!!! This free floating, quick populating aquatic plant should have just about taken over your pond by now...afterall, that's what they do (did you know they're banned in the southern states?). You start the summer with 1 or 2 and end with 30 or 40...or more (like the above picture).

Benefits of Hyacinth Floaters

With their surprisingly striking purple flower, this plant is not only popular because it is beautiful but because it provides shade and instant filtration.

The long roots of floating plants like this and like the floating lettuce trap suspended particles to consume as nutrients. They also act as a food source for fish. In fact, some of our customers insist that they have to strategically place their floating plants because their fish devour them and stunt the plant's growth.

This plant is not the end-all-be all pond filterers, but they certainly help. For information on other filtration plants, read our aquatic plant blog.

But what do you do with these floating plants in Pennsylvania when the temperatures start to drop?

Fall and Winter Care

Around this time we start getting calls from new pond owners who are wondering what sort of care goes into floating aquatic plants over the fall and winter. It's simple: pitch them! That's right...get rid of them. Tropical floaters like hyacinth and lettuce will die at first frost (historically about mid-late September for Central PA) and will not come back for you next year. That's why they're banned as plants in the south-- the south does NOT get a frost and the frost is the only thing that kills them naturally. Floaters start to turn a brownish sort of color and go mush.

At that point, they'll begin to sink and decompose in the water, creating a sludgy mess for you in the spring if they were left in the water. Too many decomposing plants can contribute the fatal ammonia levels in a pond. Fatal ammonia levels -- what's that?? Read our blog on Ammonia to find out!

We have had a few customers try over-wintering them inside their houses by a window. But at an average of $3.50 a piece, is it really worth all the care and space they'd take up to bring them indoors? That's up to you! They would still need ample amounts of sun and warmth. So depending upon how much natural sunlight comes through your window and how warm you keep your house--- you may be okay.

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So Now What??

Taking the time to properly care for your aquatic plants will mean happier and healthier plants next spring, and (in turn) a cleaner, healthier, pond ecosystem for your fish. Tropical plants, however, need to be pulled and disposed of, as their decomposition only creates a mess for you come the following spring. Dreamscapes carries a full line of pond supplies from water treatments and fish medications to pond pumps, heaters, fountains, plants and fish available at our Aquatic Retail Center in Lebanon, Pennsylvania seasonally.  If you think you need it, we have it!

Retail Hours:  April 5th-October 27th 2018:
                           Monday-Wednesday: By Appt
                           Thursday-Friday: 10am-5pm
                           Saturday: 9am-12pm
                     October 28th-April 2019: HOURS BY APPT


Contact Us
2155 State Route 343, Lebanon Pa | 717-272-6555 | info@dreamscapeswatergardens.com

Dreamscapes Watergardens services koi ponds and waterfalls in the city of Lebanon, Lancaster, Harrisburg, Mechanicsburg, Camp Hill, Cleona, Cornwall, Fredericksburg, Indiantown Gap, Jonestown, Kleinfeltersville, Mount Gretna, Myerstown, Newmanstown Palmyra, Quentin, Reistville, Richland, Schaefferstown of Pennsylvania, PA