The
Merry Weather Garden Club met on Wednesday, June 5, 2013 at the home of Dee and
Ben Garrett outside of Warm Springs. Club members enjoyed touring the Garrett’s
home and garden before meeting on the Garrett’s sun porch overlooking both the
lake and the purple martin houses.
Purple
martins are known as the 1st back yard bird of North America as the
Native Americans hung gourds near their dwellings for the birds because they
would sound an alarm if intruders came.
Martins also drive off hawks, crows, and vultures. Today, east of the
Rockies, martins are totally dependent on supplied housing. The Garrett’s
colorfully trimmed but classic white martin houses are on three poles about 100
feet from their house. Dee says she enjoys their gurgling happy chirp that is
near constant the months they are residence.
The
martins arrive about mid-February from South America. Scouts report back to the
flock that they have a prospective home.
Contrary to thought martins do not eat that many mosquitoes but like big
bugs and are often seen with beetles, dragon flies, moths, and bees in their
beaks when flying to their clutches.
Their enemies are swallows and sparrows.
Most
fascinating is the fact there is a huge migratory spot at a mall in Macon where
martins from all over join up and make the big migration to South America as a huge
flock. The Garrets guess their houses are home to about thirty birds from
spring through July when they migrate.
Garden
club members enjoyed a delightful lunch Dee and Ben had prepared before the
program began. Render Ward who spent 28 years working for the Extension Service
and who served the Coweta area for 18 years was part of that county’s strong
emphasis on horticulture and landscaping as the county grew. Coweta is known for its very active and
strong Master Gardener program. Ward recommended the 12 week Master Gardener
programs by the Extension Service and the Coweta Backyard Association which has
monthly meetings.
Ward,
with a UGA degree in Agronomy, always liked fishing and fishery management and
now has Applied Aquatics, a company designed to build, stock, and manage ponds.
He currently manages ponds as small as half an acre to reservoirs that are hundreds
of acres in size.
Ward
divides his clients into two groups: those wanting the aesthetics of a pretty
lake for recreation and to do a little fishing and those who want a well-stocked
fishing pond. Number one to good management is vegetation control and to do
that he stocks grass carp which is not a
carp but an Asian mur, or as he said, think of it as an underwater cow with no
negative attributes like eating fish eggs or fish. If a lake has mur or carp put
in early, it will never need an herbicide.
Second
for good pond management is nutrition.
Ponds are fertilized to feed the microscopic algae and plankton which is
fed on and makes up the food chain. The color of a pond and having a “good
bloom” or blue green tint shows the suspension of microorganisms. Ponds that
have a brown color just have different microscopic organisms and Ward has done “fungi
swapping” or taking 150 gallons of water from one lake with a good bloom to
another to improve the color.
Clients
often ask Ward to evaluate fish populations. He stuns the fish and does a
population analysis as well as weight measurements, their age (taken by counting
the rings on a special bone in the head), age to size analysis, studies the
pond’s predator to prey ratio, looks at the food supply and makes
recommendations to the property owner. The stunned fish, quite edible, are
delivered to the Meriwether County jail.
Garden
club members had an assortment of questions for Ward ranging from draining a
lake, to structural questions about dams and drains, turtles (which never cause
pond problems), to beavers. The club finished by asking what differentiates a
pond from a lake? Ward replied by
answering: whatever the owner wants to call it!
