Frazer McDonogh brings gardens to life through the ingenious use of ponds and lilies, writes Ros Drinkwater.

At Bloom in the Phoenix Park last summer, the show gardens were awash, in the nicest possible way. Most had a water feature of some kind or other and water trickled, flowed and shimmered in tranquil pools all over the showground.

There was ColmDoyle’s circular twin pools, Paul Martin’s stylish contemporary canal, Liat and Oliver Schurman’s pond linked by canals woven through a woodland garden designed for the courtyard of a modern building complex, and an absolute gem of a small garden called The Lyons Tea Garden Green Retreat by Frazer McDonogh.

While a garden pond can be magical through summer, autumn is the time for serious maintenance, as I discovered in conversation with McDonogh.

Having amassed 20 years of experience in the landscaping business in Ireland and the US, he returned home from Hawaii in 1997 and set up his own company that specialises in waterscapes. Visitors to the National Gardens Exhibition Centre in Kilquade, Co Wicklow will have seen his beautiful Rock and Water Garden there.

‘‘At this time of year, leaves are the biggest problem. It’s important to keep them out of the pond where they will sink to the bottom and block up the filters - and the filters, incidentally, need to be cleaned regularly,” he said.

‘‘To keep a small pond leaf-free, it’s a simple matter of putting a net over the water, supported by sticks or bamboo. This isn’t practical in a larger pond, where you’ll need to scoop out all the leaves every few days - I use a fishing net. If you have fish, go carefully. If you splash around, you can stress them. Fish are sensitive and can die of sheer fright.”

Leaves can also cause problems where there’s a waterfall. ‘‘I had a client recently whose pond was losing water,” said McDonogh. ‘‘The leaves were coming down and forming a dam which raised the water level, causing it to leak out.”

Later on in the year, aquatic plants such as iris and rushes will need to be cut back. McDonogh does his over the Christmas holiday, but he recommends late November as the best time to thin out water lilies. ‘‘Otherwise, they’ll take over the pond,” he said. ‘‘I’ve noticed that I’m cutting them back later and later, thanks to the mild autumns we’ve been having in recent years. It should be done only when the leaves have died back into the bulb.”

As he explained, water lilies are not only beautiful, but perform a practical function by helping to filter sunlight on the water. ‘‘If you have too much sunlight you’ll get blanket weed problems, something that’s on the increase because of those mild autumns,” he said.

‘‘The bad news is that the best way to get rid of blanket weed is manually. Do it regularly, say once a week, and it’s a five-minute job and the weed can go on the compost heap. If you’ve neglected the task and it persists, you can treat it with an eco-friendly blanket weed treatment that’s available from good garden centres.”

In winter, fish hibernate at the bottom of the pond. ‘‘Year-round, they need shelter, and they get this from aquatic plants, but ideally a pond should have clusters of rocks on the bottom where the fish can take refuge when the plants die down and are cut back,” McDonogh said.

Before it freezes, you’ll need a rubber ball in the pond. The area round it will allow oxygen to filter through to the fish and stop the pond from becoming stagnant. McDonogh also advises turning off all pumps for waterfalls and fountains in freezing weather.

Over the past decade, he has witnessed a huge increase in the demand for water gardens. ‘‘For gardeners, a pond is good value in terms of sight, sound and reflection - it adds a whole new dimension to gardening,” he said.

‘‘Non-gardeners like them for their therapeutic effect. I find the biggest demand is for naturalistic waterscapes, rather than formal ones. On the other hand, if you want the water without the garden, you could opt for one of those self-contained units - a sculpture with water trickling down.”

And how to deal with the heron after your fish? It can now be seen year-round, even in the heart of the city. Once again, a net might do the trick for a small pond, but McDonogh has a better idea: ‘‘I’ve found the best plan is to install a unit that has an infrared beam that detects the heron and turns on a sprinkler for 30 seconds. That’s usually long enough to deter him.”

McDonogh ended our chat with two notes of caution. ‘‘I waited until my own children were six and seven before installing a pond in my own garden. Bear in mind that, if a toddler falls face-down, he can drown in six inches of water,” he said.

‘‘Then again, when you are working on your pond it’s a good idea to have someone around. In the worst-case scenario, you could slip, bang your head on a rock and lose consciousness. Be safe rather than sorry.”

www.rosdrinkwater.com

Frazer McDonogh, Rock and Waterscapes, Wicklow town, Co Wicklow: 0872258220, www.rockandwaterscapes.com