August 15, 2026 • 39 mins
Teresa's Dirty Word of the Day - monocarpic plants. Multi-Award Winning Host, Landscape designer and garden expert Teresa Watkins chats with The Pond Monster Llyod Lightsey about Essential Tips for a Healthy Koi Pond or Water Feature.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome back to the second hour of Better Lawns and Gardens.
I'm Teresa Watkins. I am a landscape designer, garden author,
consultant horticulturists. I love helping people with their yards and
answering questions that make it easier for you here in Florida.
Whether you're a new gardener or you've been around a
long time, I would love to hear from you. We
are going to be taking your phone calls at the
(00:31):
bottom of the half hour. Right now, it's time for
the dirty word of the day.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
And now it's time for the dirty word of the
Day on Better Lawns and Gardens with Teresa Watkins.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
And the dirty word of the day is monocarpy. Monocarpy
is a fascinating reproductive strategy in plants, one that always
gets gardener's attention. A monocarpic plant flowers once, sets seed,
and then dies. The word comes from the Greek mono,
meaning single, and carpos, meaning fruit. It was first used
(01:04):
by the botanist Alphonsas de candole yeah condolea. Now monocarpic
doesn't mean short lived. Many of these plants grow for years,
even decades before that. One dramatic bloom, and in some species,
flowering itself triggers the plants decline. In others, it's the
energy demand of producing fruit and seed that redirects resources
(01:28):
away from the leaves and the roots, leading to a
natural death. You'll find monocarpic species across several major families.
Among the monocots, that includes agaves, yuccas, palms, bromeliads, and
then bananas and of course bamboos, which may weigh anywhere
from eight years to more than a century before flowering,
(01:50):
and then they die in a mass event. Among dicots,
monocarpic species appear in families like Acanthus and then Apocineaina, Astorisia,
and Fabacia, which are the beans. The Hawaiian silver swords,
for example, may take ten to fifty years before their
spectacular final bloom. Gardners sometimes asks whether monocarpic plants can
(02:15):
be kept alive In certain species, Removing the flowers immediately
after blooming before seeds begin to form can prevent this
funct hormonal cascade that leads to death. It's a remarkable strategy.
Monocarpy one grand finale years in the making and unforgettable
when it arrives. So the dirty word of the day
(02:35):
is monocarpy. Very have you ever seen it where the
gaves they will bloom and they send that stalk up,
you know, twenty feet high. Yeah, and then they die.
And I have seen, you know, apartment complexes and commercial
properties where they've planted ten to fifteen big hue agaves
and they're all beautiful, and then it's fascinating to see
(02:57):
them all bloom at the same time. And you go
back about it a month later, six weeks later, and
they're all gone because they all died. Oh. So you know,
you just have to know when you have those big agaves,
when they start to bloom, Okay, think about what you're
going to plant there, you know. So okay one triple
eight four, five, five, two nine sixty seven, or you
(03:17):
can text two three, six eight zero and so again
this time of the year, you want to make sure
that we're not fertilizing. That's important. We've got it, just
a few more weeks. You want to wait till the
end of September, first of October to do that. But
I have a question, or I have an update from
Tony and Melbourne and this is wonderful. Hi, Teresa, I
(03:41):
don't know if you remember us. We had problems with
our backyard bottle brush trees and I mentioned it on
the show when when they when they sent it in
and we thought they were dying. You told us that
the roots were girdled, and my husband followed your instructions
on how to fix the problem. You wanted us to
follow up to let you know how they're doing. Well,
they're due wonderful. Thank you so much for helping us.
(04:02):
Here's a picture. All of the branches have lots of
new growth on them and we are so happy. Well, Tony,
thank you for following up and let me know that
it works.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Yes, and when Teresa tells you to follow up, she
really does mean follow up. So those I either call
her email back then definitely and if you have the
photos and definitely email Teresa.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, that really helps. Well, it helps because I'm like
Nancy in let's see Merritt Island. She sent me photographs,
but I really couldn't tell what was causing it. She said,
my money tree leaves are curling. What do you think
I should do? And then I wanted She sent me
photos to photos, but I still couldn't see exactly what
(04:40):
the problem was. So here's my questions. Where do you
keep the plans. It looks like it's shaded, it looks
like it's in an indoor room or a patio where
it doesn't get a lot of sun, maybe not good
air circulation. And then how often does she water? I
needed to know that, and how long has it been
in the pot? And last, whenever you're thinking that something
(05:01):
may be wrong with your plant, you want to go
ahead and take a white sheet of paper, put it
underneath the leaf and tap the leaf and then look
at the paper. Sometimes you can see little insects walking
away on the paper, or you can see signs evidence
of the plants eating there and you know, just leaving,
(05:25):
you know, debris on the plant leaf, So that would
tell you you might have aphids or spider mites if
you see webbing on it. So what you want to
do is determine what is causing the problem. And money trees.
Leaves curl primarily they do to water stress. They'll curl
(05:46):
very easy if they don't get enough water or too
much water. Low humidity, so they are tropical plants, so
they don't mind the humidity. And if you're in a
room with lack of air circulation. It just maybe to
come for them. They like it to be hot and stressful,
and then improper light. They may need more light sunlight,
and you're not giving them enough temperatures. It's an air
(06:10):
conditioning room and they like it to be a little
bit warmer, or if it's in a cold room and
they like it to be hotter. You know, if you
put him in the garage during the wintertime and it
gets too cold in the garage for them, that you'll
see the effect, or they have an insect isssue. So
those are some of the reasons why leaves will curl.
So you know, if you determine that, send me a picture.
(06:32):
Go ahead and do that white shake. Shake the leaves
on a piece of white paper, see what you find
and let me know. I'd love to help Nancy. And
so we are going to be right back with the
pond monster Lloyd Light. See, he is a genius when
it comes to water in the garden, and I think
(06:53):
it's something that will attract wildlife. You need to have it.
We need to hear from Lloyd. So he's coming right up.
Got gardening questions at the bottom of the hour. One
triple eight four, five five, two nine sixty seven, where
you can text two three six eight zero it's Saturday morning.
You're listening to Better Lawns and Gardens. Welcome back to
(07:21):
Better Lawns and Gardens. As long time listeners know, I'm
a strong proponent of incorporating art into the garden an
expressive way to showcase your personality and create a sense
of place. Art brings character and delight, and I especially
love pairing it with a water feature that invites nature
in the movement and sound of water adds ambionce, softens
the space and enriches the overall landscape experience. Lloyd Lightsey,
(07:45):
known across the industry as the Pond Monster, has been
building ponds and water features since nineteen seventy three. With
more than fifty years of hands on experience, he has
helped shape the modern pond world through his craftsmanship, teaching,
and passion for the water garden lifestyle. The Pond Monster
is one of my most important professional contacts for my
landscape clients. I've worked with Lloyd for over fifteen years.
(08:08):
He has designed and built incredible ponds for my clients,
and I wanted to have him on to discuss how
easy it is to add a water feature to your garden.
Lloyd's love for life, faith, country and his wife Carrie
is at the heart of everything he does, and he
lives by the mantra, living the pond life. Good morning, Lloyd,
(08:28):
how are you?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
I am fantastic. I'm monstrously awesome today.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
I love that and so water has truly become your
life's passion and I so enjoy working with you. When
did you first realize that creating ponds and beautiful water
gardens was what you meant to do? You are meant
to do.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Honestly. Nineteen seventy three, I built my first water feature
for my aunt's neighbor and she's so loved it. It
was just like, Man, this is awesome. I love this.
Plus attact. People that are in the water industry and
people pond people are to me absolutely the most fantastic
(09:08):
kind of people.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, they are so. Tell us about your company, the
Pond Monster.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Well, there was an article written in the Pond Trade
magazine in twenty fifteen called the Birth of the Pond
Monster point light see, and that's basically the article goes
to show that when I was thirteen, I had mow
the grass. My brother joined the army, and my dad,
being a navy man, the grass had to be cut
(09:36):
a certain way every week. He had to wait a
certain time of the day before he could cut the grass.
So the heat humidity was at its peak, and I
just became very passionate about hating grass. And so I
came up with the saying that you don't have to
mow water.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
There you go, you don't.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yep, so little maintenance to a little science and uh,
you know, every water feature has its balance in Mother Nature.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
And you have a long history, well, Florida has a
long history with water gardens, with Cyprus gardens. And then
we had a wonderful, wonderful vendor called Slocum Water Gardens.
And I used to live in winter Haven at the time,
and so that tell tell us about how when you
went to Slocan Water Gardens, what what what did it
do to you?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Well, slogan water. I went to slocom But my dad
took me to Slocomater Gardens to talk about building a
pond because I asked him, It's like, Dad, you know
when I figured it out, if you can't mow water,
it's like so Dad was like, Okay, we'll go to
Sloco Water Gardens. So we went to Sloco Water Gardens.
I met Perry Slocuman. While Dad and Perry talked, I
thought we were there to buy supply will my father
being the man that he was now, I apprenticed at
(10:50):
Sloco Water Gardens for three years, and but I was
out running around while dad was doing that. So actually
I didn't get to build the pond that wanted to
at the house for about eight nine months after I
started at Slocal Water Gardens. And Perry Slocum world renown
hibrinous with lilies because there's several named after him and
(11:13):
his family members, Night Bloomers, day Bloomers, you know, the world.
Just getting into the world of lilies is a whole
other perspective.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Oh yeah, And so I met Perry Slocum in North
Carolina at the nursery there in central North Carolina. So
he was amazing. So what kind of ponds and water
gardens do you enjoy most creating and what's the difference
between a pond and a water garden.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Well, first of all, anything to do with water. I
love this absolute, whether it's a water wall, you know,
water garden, anything, anything to do with water because it
is dancing with Mother Nature his life. Without water, we're
all dead, yes, So it's very soothing. Some of the
(12:00):
VA hospitals and stuff where I can put a feature
in the vets love it. Some of the assisted living
facilities that I get the joy of being able to
build to give people that sound of water, because it
goes into your psyche to say I have water, it's available,
(12:20):
so I will be at peace.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
That's very very important, Lloyd. And you know it does
when you're in the garden listening to it. It does
change your life. In experiencing your yard.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I definitely want to say I can bring your blood
pressure down fifteen to twenty points just by here in
the water.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
I believe you. I believe you so in your experience. Void.
What of the most common mistake homeowners make when they're
trying to build their own water gardens?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Size?
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Size. In fifty years of doing this, I have never
been told I've built one too big. I always get
called back, can we make it a little bigger, you know,
add this to it. Can we do a stream, maybe
a longer stream to come into it.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
It's usually about the size.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
YEP. When we built when my husband built me my
first goldfish pond. We went to the store and we
got this, you know, the black plastic little container, and
we put it in the yard. We dug the hole
and put it in and my husband looks at me
and he goes, does that do anything for you? And
they go, no, it doesn't. And so we turned around
and we built two of them out of limestone, a
(13:32):
six hundred gallon one and a nine hundred gallon goldfish pond.
And it was so much better than the little three
by six that we thought we wanted to start out with.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
They size matters when it comes to pond it does.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
So. So when you were talking to homeowners, what do
they need to determine before installing a water garden? So
how do they start off after calling you?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Well, I come to the customer, I do a consultation
and basically what I'm looking at is a lot of
customers say, well, I want the pond way back there
in the back of the yard, and I'm like, no,
not really, you want to bring it to you. We
live in Florida. It's hot. Anybody noticed how hot it is?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Hot?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
It is so and one of the questions I do
ask because uh not the you know, be too forward
with them. But to say, okay, is this your kitchen window? Here,
is where's your main viewing from the house coming out?
Because that's the direction I want to put the waterfalls
so that you can stand in the house, you can
see the waterfalls. And it's really going to bring the
(14:36):
volume of the waterfalls so you can hear it in
the house closer to the house. So it gives you
a short distance to walk, you know, out of your
back or and you know, view the pond see it.
You know. That to me is how is it going
to be viewed in the backyard?
Speaker 1 (14:54):
You taught you taught me that, So that's very very important.
So what kind of materials can can you make ponds
out of?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Well, in the industry, there's a koi pond, which is
if you're going to deal with high end koi, bring
you know, ship in Japanese koi through COIs with papers
and that I use some of the great vendors, some
here in Florida, I'm in New York. One in Pennsylvania.
Depends on the value of what they want to do.
(15:24):
But that's going to be built more like a swimming pool.
There's not going to be rocks in it. It's all
going to be about the filtration, filtration, filtration, filtration, and
that way the fish will grow bigger, the colors will
pop more. But you can also get the same thing
with an ecosystem pond which is rocked in it looks,
gives you that North Carolina look or you know in
(15:47):
the mountains being there, and you can put a pond
grade fish in there. I have pond grade fish in
my pond and they're monsters, and I mean that just
because I am the monster. But you know, it's feeding
fish and filtering. That's what helps you fish grow. If
you're into that. Now, if it's just a water garden,
then it's all about the plants, right.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
But you need both of them. If you have fish,
you're gonna need the plants too.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yes, yes, because the plants are actually using beneficial bacteria
which is going to grow. And when the fish waste,
the beneficial bacteria take the night trate, turn night trate,
turn it into night rate, and then the plants absorb
the nitrate so it keeps the ammonia levels down and
it builds a healthy pond.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
It goes with that cycle and those little fish. I mean,
we never bought the big ones. We would buy the
black moors and just we love them. But a little
goldfish will get to be six to eight to a
foot long and does little two dollars goldfish?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah they will, Yes, they will. Now, goldfish and koy
they get along just fine. Now, goldfish aren't as productive
in the pond as what akoi is because akoi will
go around and nibble on the algae that's growing on
the rocks because you're going to have that. You want that.
That's mother nature doing her thing. So but the coil
(17:15):
go around and you don't have to feed your koy
every single day five times, you know, No, you don't
have to do that. Bold fish you really have to feed,
but they'll still survive for a good period of time.
It's having fish versus having a cat or a dog.
You don't have to house them, you just have to
welk them. Yeah, exactly. The fish will survive. If you
(17:36):
go on vacation, they come back a week later, they're
still going to be fine.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
They'll be fine there and so, but you could also
do modern ones with flagstone and oh yeah, so you
do all different kinds of ponds. The small ones and bubblers.
What do you think about just having a bubbling water feature?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
They're awesome And again it's in some of the proper
gardens in England if you walk through them, like even
up in Longwood, just walking through and having several little
water features in because that's going to help the bees,
the butterflies, the mother nature, the things that you want
(18:15):
to help take care of your guard because they all
need water.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Yes, that is true. So I've got a lot more questions, Woyd,
can you stay through the break? Yeah? Okay, super hold,
I got one more questions. So what are the components
we got We just were coming up on a hard break.
What are the components of a healthy water garden?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Of a healthy water garden, it's going to be your filtration,
it's going to be your aer ration and the healthy
balance of the bacteria that's in the water, healthy good bacteria.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Real quick. Give us your website for those that are listening,
and then we're going to come back to the break.
And I have a lot more questions for you. What
is your website and phone number? How and you have
a monthly or you have a weekly maintenance? You can
come by and make waards.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
We do. We have two technicians to do full maintenance
for on all the ponds for our customers. My website
is www dot uh pondmonster dot com.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
There you go. That's wonderful. Lloyd, thank you. We're going
to be back with Lloyd Lightsey. He is the pond Monster.
I thoroughly recommend him. UH if you have water gardens,
if you want to start them, if you just want
a consultation, Lloyd is the man to ask. He is
the monster. We're going to be back Saturday morning here
at the Summit Responsible Solution Studios. I'm Teresa Watkins. You're
(19:34):
listening to Better Lones and Gardens and this is Bordis
Talk and Entertainment Network. Welcome back to Better Lawns and Gardens.
(20:02):
We're talking with the pond Monster, Lloyd Lightsey. He's a
creator of incredible water features, goldfish ponds, bubbly water fountains,
and any way you like your water, he can he
can provide that. So Lloyd, let's let's talk about chemicals
and so what how do you maintain the water quality?
(20:23):
Do you have to use a lot of chemicals?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Chemicals is harsh on me? I like to say we
use natural bacteria. Okay, anything that can go into a pond.
That yeah, several different kind of algaees. Yeah, plankton, algae,
which is what turns the water green. That's Mother Nature doing.
Mother Nature does. The fish are happy, they're glad because
predators can't see him, so they're good with green water.
(20:50):
But with natural bacteria's plants and just proper filtration, it'll
keep the water clear. And that's the only thing we use.
We don't use anything like algae, ficks or anything, because
what that does is it kills the algae and the
algae falls to the bottom and it sits and turns
in the muck. Yeah, so you use natural bacteria. It
(21:10):
eats the waste and then again it feeds the plant
because Mother.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Nature has a cycle and it has to go through
that cycle to clear up, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yes, ma'am. It's like I say, I dance with Mother
Nature and I let her lead because if I don't,
she will smack me. And it happens still today because
all over the state we know we have the rainfall
that we have, they eat the humidity. Florida is a
different creature than what's all over the state. Most of
(21:41):
the manufacturers that I use do bring me in to
teach classes when they have a conference. And that's one
of the things if we can balance the water in Florida.
I don't never prep upond for winter, which just don't
have it. We run twenty four seven three six. Yeah,
so we have a small winter window that the plants
(22:04):
will slow down, but then they'll drive right back. Two.
We had just had that recent freeze. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Oh I bet that was devastating.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Oh it was. But then again, the pond helped maintain
the heat, yeah, from being in the ground, of course,
and then you know it helped the plants somewhat.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
And the fish don't find it because I mean up
north they live underneath the ice.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yes, yeah, they go dormant. And when the water hits
fifty five degrees, you don't want to feed your fish
because your fish don't have a stomach, right, They process
and then they waste. And what you feed your fish
or what you're feeding your pond. So if you're putting
just like ourselves, if you're eating stuff that your body
doesn't know what to do with, well then they waste
(22:51):
it and then the water doesn't know what to do
with it. The bacteria doesn't know what to do with it,
so it just accumulates in the pond.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Wow. Okay, so let's talk about Okay, So can a
water feature be something any homeowner can add to their yard?
And what does a typical water guarden investment look like?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Actually, the we have an eleven by sixteen which is
our kind of go to pond. And when I say turnkey,
we're talking about plants, fish, the filtration. We do two
months worth of maintenance after we get done building. So
the customer they can either take care of the maintenance
(23:31):
or I have my technicians come in and it usually
takes forty five minutes to an hour a week to
take care of that maintenance. And here's the benefit. You
get to get in the water. Yeah, so your flow.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
You can swim with the fishes.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Whoa, hey, easy, wait that dark watch that? Okay those
swimming with the fish. Yes, you can swim with your fish,
but just be easy about that.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Okay, okay, So what are we talking about, coss I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
At eleven by sixteen turnty pond is it runs around
thirty two thousand, okay, and that's full turnkey. We try to,
you know, very professional on the job. When we're on
job site, I even talk to the neighbors to let
them know, Hey, listen, I'm going to have this equipment
in here. I don't mean to block your driveway or
you know. We don't do that because I want the neighbors,
(24:26):
you know, I don't want to come in and have
neighbors aggravated that the neighbor we're working on. So but
that's turnty. And we also build you two ponds. We
build you a pond for the day, we build you
a pond for the night. Because we put lights in ours,
we use the best equipment. When it comes to light,
lights have always been an issue. I use a WASA
(24:48):
PROFILEX lights. They're programmable. You can have soft white light,
right white light, and you can also they're multicolored and
they come pre programmed that you can do like Northern
Lights effect or a fire feature effect. They're really the
best of the best lights. In the ten years i've
been installing them, outside of a lightning strike to the house,
(25:13):
I've not replaced one light. Wow, not one. And in
the past with the other manufacturer's lights, it's light where
they were always something I was pulling my hair out.
It's like one lights down and if one light goes down,
then it's not far behind it, you know the others.
It's just okay.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
So for the easy homeowner, for the DIY people listening,
because there's a lot of them out there and it's
just a simple water feature like a bubbler, And can
they do something for like a couple of hundred dollars
three hundred, four hundred dollars and have something nice that
will fit in a small yard.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
It'll it'll be very very small, very small that we
do any of our we use the basin that holds
depending on off it's small, large or medium. That basin
is your go to to me because you dig the holes,
you put it in and then you put your feature
on top of it. Your pump is located in it.
(26:10):
You can decorate the top of it with any type
of gravel that you wish. Always always always run an
auto fill. So we live in Florida.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Yes, and it evaporates very quickly. Yes, okay, So what
is the largest pond you've ever made by akers? Really? Lloyd? Yeah,
Oh my goodness, how credible is that? Yeah, we'll have
to we'll have to talk.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah, so you picture hired excavators to come in and
do all that, and then laying the liner and welding
it all together.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
And it was I have a heartbreak, Lloyd. I enjoyed
talking with you. I'm gonna have to have you back
on because I have so many more questions. But real quick,
tell people how they can get a hold of you,
and tell us a little bit about your maintenance program.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Uh well, our phone number is eight six three four
one two six three three. I feel we're very conveniently
located in Winterhaven, Florida, right in the center of the state.
We build all over the state. And our website again
is ww dotpondmonster dot com.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Oh that's great.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
And our maintenance program we let you enjoy living the
pond life. If you don't want to touch the filters
and stuff like that. Anything that's ikey, if you don't
want to touch it, you can handle it. And we
come on a once a week basis and we take
care of your pond.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
And so you said anything that's icky, that's another fish pun.
There you go. Okay, Lloyd, thank you so much for
talking with me today. I do enjoy working with you,
and I'll see you soon. So that's a Pond Monster.
If it's Saturday morning, you're listening to Better Lads and
Gardens from the Summit Responsible Solution Studios. I'm Teresa Watkins
(27:54):
and this is Florida's Talk and Entertainment Network. Welcome back
to Better Lawns and Gardens. I want to give a
big thank you to Lloyd Lightsey, the Pondmonster, and that's
Thepondmonster dot com. Uh and he has a wonderful maintenance program.
(28:18):
If you don't want to take care of your pond,
he will do it. So it's really great. Let me
give you some landscaping advice and chores to do indoors
with your foliage. Okay, so right now is the time
to prepare your foolige for fall. You want to reshape
and trim and just go ahead and get it ready.
(28:40):
If you've had them out on the patio and you're
going to be taking them inside, start to look for
insects and issues with your pots so you don't bring
them indoors in your house. Actually, you want to transplant
root bound and poorly drained foliage plants and add new soil.
You want to check for mealy bugs and scale and mites,
and you see that white fuzzy on the on the plants.
(29:03):
That's not good. That's an insect. And you want to
use anim oil eighty five and that's the Summit Responsible
solutionsnem oil, and it is great. You can also start
to take cuttings of your favorite plants before the fall
and go ahead and while they're growing right now, you
can take clippings and root them in water or also
(29:23):
in soil too as well. Indoor plants accumulate dust. When
was the last time you dusted your plants, Lizzie, don't
like you need one more thing to do. I don't
have any plants inside my house. Oh there you go,
so they're all at You have cats there you go.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Yes, yeah, and there and there are just rascally so
they would eat them and no matter what.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
So you don't need the dust. They don't need to
get jump up there the cats and the tail swishes
the leaves and anything. No, so no dusting. Okay. So,
but if you have plants, especially the waxy coated ones,
the hard leaf ones, the sand saveria, the pepper romeias,
go ahead and and you can wipe those clean. You
don't need to put any oil or anything on it.
Just take a damp cloth and wipe it. And sometimes
(30:06):
I even use the lens wipes or even the antibacterial
wipes that you can get, just pull out and just
wipe it down and that'll be really good and it'll
keep the dust down. And then also to the insects.
You want to see if any light, even if any
plants that are leaning towards the light. Okay you've heard
(30:29):
go towards the light. Well, you want to make sure
you twist your plants and turn them so that the
whole pot gets enough light. So now the time to
do it. Just go ahead and set up a regular
timeframe once a month. You just want to turn it,
you know, one hundred and eighty degrees and that way
they're not going to be so light starved. That's called heliotropism.
(30:50):
And heliotropism is when the plants start reaching for the sun.
And you even see it outdoors in shaded areas. You'll
see plants go ahead and growing outside of the shade canopy,
and that just means they're just looking for a little
bit more sunlight. Your orchids and bromeliads inside you can
put outdoors in the shade. You can hang your orchids.
This is a good time to do it because in
(31:12):
a few weeks, in about six to eight weeks, we're
going to temperature is going to start to go down.
And when there's a twenty degree temperature change, when we
go like from one hundred to eighty or even ninety
to seventy, that's going to start the cycle for your
orchids to start blooming again. So go ahead and hang
them outside. Let them enjoy the heat and the humidity.
(31:34):
They thrive with that. You just want to make sure
they're out of the sunlight. You want to make sure
that you put them in complete shade. And then in
same with your bromeliads too, if they're in pots, put
them in shade. And then when you know, right before
we start to get the really cold temperatures in October,
we'll tell you to bring them on in and they
(31:56):
should go ahead and bloom for you. You Also, if
you have large plants in your yard, are in your
in your house or patio, you want to divide the
clump forming foliage plants like spathophylom and san saveria, go
ahead and divide them up and have new ones. You
can give them to friends and family. Uh, but also
too you can just have more pots of containers of plants,
(32:16):
and the more the merrier, so that'll be good vegetables
and fruit care is very very important. And I can
take your message at or gardening questions. I'm just looking
at the time here one triple eight four five, five,
two nine sixty seven or text two three six eight
zero and then also two if you'd like to travel
(32:37):
with me to be inspired by beautiful gardens and just
see all the great things you can do in your garden,
and I will tell you going to gardens uh up
north and across the Midwest, and then also too across
the pond that inspires you. We can do that here
in Florida, and when I travel with you, we talk
(32:59):
about how to incorporate that into Florida. But also too,
guests that come from other parts of the country, I
can tell you how to design gardens like we see
on our garden tours that's artbloomgardentours dot com. And we
have our Newport show up. We do have room available
still for our friends tour the Artista gardens of France.
(33:20):
And when is that well, that is in March. Okay,
all right, so I'm sorry, take it back April April, Okay. Now,
in March we have the Florida Spring Break for gardeners,
which is going to be a lot of fun, especially
if you're up north coming down in March after having
a long winter, you're ready from some springtime. Our Florida
spring Break in March is a great, great tour. Oh
(33:40):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
So if you you may, you'll need a passport for
some of these, so you need to go hand get
that in now, because we're now getting to the end
of the year and it may take a while.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
So it does. It takes a good three to four months,
and you start to panic if you don't get it exactly.
So they go to your website.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
They'll find out the costs and they can either sign
up and or get on a waiting list for all
your upcoming events.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Correct again. The website is art in bloomgardentours dot com.
And we have trips to the Chelsea Flower Show if
you've never been. It's just one of the bucket lists
I say bouquet list. We spell it bucket but it's
pronounced bouquet and it's one something you can go to
every year because it's always different every year and we
(34:21):
go to different gardens and then also to the Newport
Flower Show is in June, and we're going to Martha's
Vineyard and into Boston to some fantastic places. And then
in July we do our Wonderful it's one of our
popular garden tours, the Garden Walk Buffalo and Niagara Falls
in Canada. In August we're going to Scotland, to the
(34:44):
Highlands in Scotland and see beautiful gardens there. September we
are doing the Hudson the Gilded Age River Valley. We're
going up to the Hudson Valley, Hudson River Valley and
seeing beautiful gardens there and all the beautiful mansions. And
then in October we're doing a fall foliage and beautiful
gardens and we're going to go to some famous landscape
(35:04):
designers gardens.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
And this is all for twenty seven, correct, This is
all for twenty twenty seven. Yes, And the best part
about these tours is that it's it's personal, so it's
not like a huge group of like, you know, hundreds
of people going yeah, big buffloads and yeah, and you
don't get to see Teresa and Tony and chat with
them and get information.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
And it's small groups, all group small groups and delicious
food and wonderful hotels. So we'd really do it all.
And there's just plenty of time to look at beautiful gardens,
and so we'd love.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
To have you with it and gardens and stuff that
you don't get to see or you get to see
before an event. Because Teresa, you know, Teresa's just got
that much clout. She's just that cool. So she's award winning.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
So I don't like to be in crowds. And so
you know, when we do the garden Walk Buffalo, instead
of going the weekend where seventy thousand people come because
it is the largest garden walk in the United States,
we go a couple of weeks before and we're the
only ones in the gardens. So we love doing that.
So and then I can introduce you to some of
my friends and so it'll be great and we can
(36:10):
just geek out at plants also, so vegetable and fruit care,
mango trees. If your mango trees still has brown leaves
on them, go ahead and see if that branch has died.
You're going to have to trim it back. The same
with your avocado tree. You want it to be ready
and now. You want to do it now, because if
we do it later in the year, it's that new
(36:31):
growth is going to be more susceptible to freezing. So
go ahead and cut your damaged fruit tree branches and
leaves off now so that it can grow more leaves
and they can harden off before we get our major
freezes in late December and in January. Now, sometimes we
get a major freeze at the end of November and December,
(36:54):
which I kind of enjoy because I love the cold
weather during holidays season. It makes the hot cocoa and
all the fun things that you do during the holiday
season much better. But you want to make sure your
plants are taken care of. Check your pineapples. They should
be ready. Check them before the raccoons and the possums
get them, and even the bears and squirrels. If they're fragrant,
(37:17):
very fragrant, and they're turning yellow to orange, this is
go ahead and take them inside. You want to feed
your bananas and figs monthly. You want to keep the
soil moist. And you can even cut off the dead
branches for bananas and cut them up because they're full
of potassium, and just lay them around the base of
your banana and that'll give it some great nutrition. Also too,
(37:41):
this is the time again get a soil test before
we fertilize. Go ahead, and you can put good composts.
Don't get cheap composts. Get good compost and put it
into your raised beds and your garden beds. Okay, So
make sure you're doing that. In that way, you're not
gonna have to deal with the the weeds which are
(38:02):
so so prominent in really cheap soil. So if you've
started your tomatoes, peppers and eggplants, they should be right
now going into your raised beds or moving them up
to a bigger pot, or thinning them out so that
they have room to grow and so they don't have
a lot of competition. Okay. I want to give a
big thank you to all our callers. We had some
(38:25):
great callers today and then also listeners. We just so
appreciate our listeners absolutely.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
And also Tom from Lake Nona just sent a text
in and said that he appreciates the pond Monster very good.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
There you go. Thank you so much to Lloyd Lights
the Pondmonster. That's thepwnmonster dot com. We're going to be
back next week with some more Better Logs and Gardens
and gardening questions For Saturday morning, you're listening to Better
Logs and Gardens from the Summit Responsible Solution Studios. I'm
Teresa Watkins, and this is Florida's Talk and Entertainment Network.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
If you missed any of the show or want to
recap any other shows, just go to Better Lawns dot com.
That's Better Lawns dot com, or even search Better Lawns
and Gardens anywhere on the Internet, or just search Teresa
Watkins because she's just cool like that.
Welcome back to the second hour of Better Lawns and Gardens.
I'm Teresa Watkins. I am a landscape designer, garden author,
consultant horticulturists. I love helping people with their yards and
answering questions that make it easier for you here in Florida.
Whether you're a new gardener or you've been around a
long time, I would love to hear from you. We
are going to be taking your phone calls at the
(00:31):
bottom of the half hour. Right now, it's time for
the dirty word of the day.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
And now it's time for the dirty word of the
Day on Better Lawns and Gardens with Teresa Watkins.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
And the dirty word of the day is monocarpy. Monocarpy
is a fascinating reproductive strategy in plants, one that always
gets gardener's attention. A monocarpic plant flowers once, sets seed,
and then dies. The word comes from the Greek mono,
meaning single, and carpos, meaning fruit. It was first used
(01:04):
by the botanist Alphonsas de candole yeah condolea. Now monocarpic
doesn't mean short lived. Many of these plants grow for years,
even decades before that. One dramatic bloom, and in some species,
flowering itself triggers the plants decline. In others, it's the
energy demand of producing fruit and seed that redirects resources
(01:28):
away from the leaves and the roots, leading to a
natural death. You'll find monocarpic species across several major families.
Among the monocots, that includes agaves, yuccas, palms, bromeliads, and
then bananas and of course bamboos, which may weigh anywhere
from eight years to more than a century before flowering,
(01:50):
and then they die in a mass event. Among dicots,
monocarpic species appear in families like Acanthus and then Apocineaina, Astorisia,
and Fabacia, which are the beans. The Hawaiian silver swords,
for example, may take ten to fifty years before their
spectacular final bloom. Gardners sometimes asks whether monocarpic plants can
(02:15):
be kept alive In certain species, Removing the flowers immediately
after blooming before seeds begin to form can prevent this
funct hormonal cascade that leads to death. It's a remarkable strategy.
Monocarpy one grand finale years in the making and unforgettable
when it arrives. So the dirty word of the day
(02:35):
is monocarpy. Very have you ever seen it where the
gaves they will bloom and they send that stalk up,
you know, twenty feet high. Yeah, and then they die.
And I have seen, you know, apartment complexes and commercial
properties where they've planted ten to fifteen big hue agaves
and they're all beautiful, and then it's fascinating to see
(02:57):
them all bloom at the same time. And you go
back about it a month later, six weeks later, and
they're all gone because they all died. Oh. So you know,
you just have to know when you have those big agaves,
when they start to bloom, Okay, think about what you're
going to plant there, you know. So okay one triple
eight four, five, five, two nine sixty seven, or you
(03:17):
can text two three, six eight zero and so again
this time of the year, you want to make sure
that we're not fertilizing. That's important. We've got it, just
a few more weeks. You want to wait till the
end of September, first of October to do that. But
I have a question, or I have an update from
Tony and Melbourne and this is wonderful. Hi, Teresa, I
(03:41):
don't know if you remember us. We had problems with
our backyard bottle brush trees and I mentioned it on
the show when when they when they sent it in
and we thought they were dying. You told us that
the roots were girdled, and my husband followed your instructions
on how to fix the problem. You wanted us to
follow up to let you know how they're doing. Well,
they're due wonderful. Thank you so much for helping us.
(04:02):
Here's a picture. All of the branches have lots of
new growth on them and we are so happy. Well, Tony,
thank you for following up and let me know that
it works.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Yes, and when Teresa tells you to follow up, she
really does mean follow up. So those I either call
her email back then definitely and if you have the
photos and definitely email Teresa.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, that really helps. Well, it helps because I'm like
Nancy in let's see Merritt Island. She sent me photographs,
but I really couldn't tell what was causing it. She said,
my money tree leaves are curling. What do you think
I should do? And then I wanted She sent me
photos to photos, but I still couldn't see exactly what
(04:40):
the problem was. So here's my questions. Where do you
keep the plans. It looks like it's shaded, it looks
like it's in an indoor room or a patio where
it doesn't get a lot of sun, maybe not good
air circulation. And then how often does she water? I
needed to know that, and how long has it been
in the pot? And last, whenever you're thinking that something
(05:01):
may be wrong with your plant, you want to go
ahead and take a white sheet of paper, put it
underneath the leaf and tap the leaf and then look
at the paper. Sometimes you can see little insects walking
away on the paper, or you can see signs evidence
of the plants eating there and you know, just leaving,
(05:25):
you know, debris on the plant leaf, So that would
tell you you might have aphids or spider mites if
you see webbing on it. So what you want to
do is determine what is causing the problem. And money trees.
Leaves curl primarily they do to water stress. They'll curl
(05:46):
very easy if they don't get enough water or too
much water. Low humidity, so they are tropical plants, so
they don't mind the humidity. And if you're in a
room with lack of air circulation. It just maybe to
come for them. They like it to be hot and stressful,
and then improper light. They may need more light sunlight,
and you're not giving them enough temperatures. It's an air
(06:10):
conditioning room and they like it to be a little
bit warmer, or if it's in a cold room and
they like it to be hotter. You know, if you
put him in the garage during the wintertime and it
gets too cold in the garage for them, that you'll
see the effect, or they have an insect isssue. So
those are some of the reasons why leaves will curl.
So you know, if you determine that, send me a picture.
(06:32):
Go ahead and do that white shake. Shake the leaves
on a piece of white paper, see what you find
and let me know. I'd love to help Nancy. And
so we are going to be right back with the
pond monster Lloyd Light. See, he is a genius when
it comes to water in the garden, and I think
(06:53):
it's something that will attract wildlife. You need to have it.
We need to hear from Lloyd. So he's coming right up.
Got gardening questions at the bottom of the hour. One
triple eight four, five five, two nine sixty seven, where
you can text two three six eight zero it's Saturday morning.
You're listening to Better Lawns and Gardens. Welcome back to
(07:21):
Better Lawns and Gardens. As long time listeners know, I'm
a strong proponent of incorporating art into the garden an
expressive way to showcase your personality and create a sense
of place. Art brings character and delight, and I especially
love pairing it with a water feature that invites nature
in the movement and sound of water adds ambionce, softens
the space and enriches the overall landscape experience. Lloyd Lightsey,
(07:45):
known across the industry as the Pond Monster, has been
building ponds and water features since nineteen seventy three. With
more than fifty years of hands on experience, he has
helped shape the modern pond world through his craftsmanship, teaching,
and passion for the water garden lifestyle. The Pond Monster
is one of my most important professional contacts for my
landscape clients. I've worked with Lloyd for over fifteen years.
(08:08):
He has designed and built incredible ponds for my clients,
and I wanted to have him on to discuss how
easy it is to add a water feature to your garden.
Lloyd's love for life, faith, country and his wife Carrie
is at the heart of everything he does, and he
lives by the mantra, living the pond life. Good morning, Lloyd,
(08:28):
how are you?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
I am fantastic. I'm monstrously awesome today.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
I love that and so water has truly become your
life's passion and I so enjoy working with you. When
did you first realize that creating ponds and beautiful water
gardens was what you meant to do? You are meant
to do.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Honestly. Nineteen seventy three, I built my first water feature
for my aunt's neighbor and she's so loved it. It
was just like, Man, this is awesome. I love this.
Plus attact. People that are in the water industry and
people pond people are to me absolutely the most fantastic
(09:08):
kind of people.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, they are so. Tell us about your company, the
Pond Monster.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Well, there was an article written in the Pond Trade
magazine in twenty fifteen called the Birth of the Pond
Monster point light see, and that's basically the article goes
to show that when I was thirteen, I had mow
the grass. My brother joined the army, and my dad,
being a navy man, the grass had to be cut
(09:36):
a certain way every week. He had to wait a
certain time of the day before he could cut the grass.
So the heat humidity was at its peak, and I
just became very passionate about hating grass. And so I
came up with the saying that you don't have to
mow water.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
There you go, you don't.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yep, so little maintenance to a little science and uh,
you know, every water feature has its balance in Mother Nature.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
And you have a long history, well, Florida has a
long history with water gardens, with Cyprus gardens. And then
we had a wonderful, wonderful vendor called Slocum Water Gardens.
And I used to live in winter Haven at the time,
and so that tell tell us about how when you
went to Slocan Water Gardens, what what what did it
do to you?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Well, slogan water. I went to slocom But my dad
took me to Slocomater Gardens to talk about building a
pond because I asked him, It's like, Dad, you know
when I figured it out, if you can't mow water,
it's like so Dad was like, Okay, we'll go to
Sloco Water Gardens. So we went to Sloco Water Gardens.
I met Perry Slocuman. While Dad and Perry talked, I
thought we were there to buy supply will my father
being the man that he was now, I apprenticed at
(10:50):
Sloco Water Gardens for three years, and but I was
out running around while dad was doing that. So actually
I didn't get to build the pond that wanted to
at the house for about eight nine months after I
started at Slocal Water Gardens. And Perry Slocum world renown
hibrinous with lilies because there's several named after him and
(11:13):
his family members, Night Bloomers, day Bloomers, you know, the world.
Just getting into the world of lilies is a whole
other perspective.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Oh yeah, And so I met Perry Slocum in North
Carolina at the nursery there in central North Carolina. So
he was amazing. So what kind of ponds and water
gardens do you enjoy most creating and what's the difference
between a pond and a water garden.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Well, first of all, anything to do with water. I
love this absolute, whether it's a water wall, you know,
water garden, anything, anything to do with water because it
is dancing with Mother Nature his life. Without water, we're
all dead, yes, So it's very soothing. Some of the
(12:00):
VA hospitals and stuff where I can put a feature
in the vets love it. Some of the assisted living
facilities that I get the joy of being able to
build to give people that sound of water, because it
goes into your psyche to say I have water, it's available,
(12:20):
so I will be at peace.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
That's very very important, Lloyd. And you know it does
when you're in the garden listening to it. It does
change your life. In experiencing your yard.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I definitely want to say I can bring your blood
pressure down fifteen to twenty points just by here in
the water.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
I believe you. I believe you so in your experience. Void.
What of the most common mistake homeowners make when they're
trying to build their own water gardens?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Size?
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Size. In fifty years of doing this, I have never
been told I've built one too big. I always get
called back, can we make it a little bigger, you know,
add this to it. Can we do a stream, maybe
a longer stream to come into it.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
It's usually about the size.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
YEP. When we built when my husband built me my
first goldfish pond. We went to the store and we
got this, you know, the black plastic little container, and
we put it in the yard. We dug the hole
and put it in and my husband looks at me
and he goes, does that do anything for you? And
they go, no, it doesn't. And so we turned around
and we built two of them out of limestone, a
(13:32):
six hundred gallon one and a nine hundred gallon goldfish pond.
And it was so much better than the little three
by six that we thought we wanted to start out with.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
They size matters when it comes to pond it does.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
So. So when you were talking to homeowners, what do
they need to determine before installing a water garden? So
how do they start off after calling you?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Well, I come to the customer, I do a consultation
and basically what I'm looking at is a lot of
customers say, well, I want the pond way back there
in the back of the yard, and I'm like, no,
not really, you want to bring it to you. We
live in Florida. It's hot. Anybody noticed how hot it is?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Hot?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
It is so and one of the questions I do
ask because uh not the you know, be too forward
with them. But to say, okay, is this your kitchen window? Here,
is where's your main viewing from the house coming out?
Because that's the direction I want to put the waterfalls
so that you can stand in the house, you can
see the waterfalls. And it's really going to bring the
(14:36):
volume of the waterfalls so you can hear it in
the house closer to the house. So it gives you
a short distance to walk, you know, out of your
back or and you know, view the pond see it.
You know. That to me is how is it going
to be viewed in the backyard?
Speaker 1 (14:54):
You taught you taught me that, So that's very very important.
So what kind of materials can can you make ponds
out of?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Well, in the industry, there's a koi pond, which is
if you're going to deal with high end koi, bring
you know, ship in Japanese koi through COIs with papers
and that I use some of the great vendors, some
here in Florida, I'm in New York. One in Pennsylvania.
Depends on the value of what they want to do.
(15:24):
But that's going to be built more like a swimming pool.
There's not going to be rocks in it. It's all
going to be about the filtration, filtration, filtration, filtration, and
that way the fish will grow bigger, the colors will
pop more. But you can also get the same thing
with an ecosystem pond which is rocked in it looks,
gives you that North Carolina look or you know in
(15:47):
the mountains being there, and you can put a pond
grade fish in there. I have pond grade fish in
my pond and they're monsters, and I mean that just
because I am the monster. But you know, it's feeding
fish and filtering. That's what helps you fish grow. If
you're into that. Now, if it's just a water garden,
then it's all about the plants, right.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
But you need both of them. If you have fish,
you're gonna need the plants too.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yes, yes, because the plants are actually using beneficial bacteria
which is going to grow. And when the fish waste,
the beneficial bacteria take the night trate, turn night trate,
turn it into night rate, and then the plants absorb
the nitrate so it keeps the ammonia levels down and
it builds a healthy pond.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
It goes with that cycle and those little fish. I mean,
we never bought the big ones. We would buy the
black moors and just we love them. But a little
goldfish will get to be six to eight to a
foot long and does little two dollars goldfish?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah they will, Yes, they will. Now, goldfish and koy
they get along just fine. Now, goldfish aren't as productive
in the pond as what akoi is because akoi will
go around and nibble on the algae that's growing on
the rocks because you're going to have that. You want that.
That's mother nature doing her thing. So but the coil
(17:15):
go around and you don't have to feed your koy
every single day five times, you know, No, you don't
have to do that. Bold fish you really have to feed,
but they'll still survive for a good period of time.
It's having fish versus having a cat or a dog.
You don't have to house them, you just have to
welk them. Yeah, exactly. The fish will survive. If you
(17:36):
go on vacation, they come back a week later, they're
still going to be fine.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
They'll be fine there and so, but you could also
do modern ones with flagstone and oh yeah, so you
do all different kinds of ponds. The small ones and bubblers.
What do you think about just having a bubbling water feature?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
They're awesome And again it's in some of the proper
gardens in England if you walk through them, like even
up in Longwood, just walking through and having several little
water features in because that's going to help the bees,
the butterflies, the mother nature, the things that you want
(18:15):
to help take care of your guard because they all
need water.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Yes, that is true. So I've got a lot more questions, Woyd,
can you stay through the break? Yeah? Okay, super hold,
I got one more questions. So what are the components
we got We just were coming up on a hard break.
What are the components of a healthy water garden?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Of a healthy water garden, it's going to be your filtration,
it's going to be your aer ration and the healthy
balance of the bacteria that's in the water, healthy good bacteria.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Real quick. Give us your website for those that are listening,
and then we're going to come back to the break.
And I have a lot more questions for you. What
is your website and phone number? How and you have
a monthly or you have a weekly maintenance? You can
come by and make waards.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
We do. We have two technicians to do full maintenance
for on all the ponds for our customers. My website
is www dot uh pondmonster dot com.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
There you go. That's wonderful. Lloyd, thank you. We're going
to be back with Lloyd Lightsey. He is the pond Monster.
I thoroughly recommend him. UH if you have water gardens,
if you want to start them, if you just want
a consultation, Lloyd is the man to ask. He is
the monster. We're going to be back Saturday morning here
at the Summit Responsible Solution Studios. I'm Teresa Watkins. You're
(19:34):
listening to Better Lones and Gardens and this is Bordis
Talk and Entertainment Network. Welcome back to Better Lawns and Gardens.
(20:02):
We're talking with the pond Monster, Lloyd Lightsey. He's a
creator of incredible water features, goldfish ponds, bubbly water fountains,
and any way you like your water, he can he
can provide that. So Lloyd, let's let's talk about chemicals
and so what how do you maintain the water quality?
(20:23):
Do you have to use a lot of chemicals?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Chemicals is harsh on me? I like to say we
use natural bacteria. Okay, anything that can go into a pond.
That yeah, several different kind of algaees. Yeah, plankton, algae,
which is what turns the water green. That's Mother Nature doing.
Mother Nature does. The fish are happy, they're glad because
predators can't see him, so they're good with green water.
(20:50):
But with natural bacteria's plants and just proper filtration, it'll
keep the water clear. And that's the only thing we use.
We don't use anything like algae, ficks or anything, because
what that does is it kills the algae and the
algae falls to the bottom and it sits and turns
in the muck. Yeah, so you use natural bacteria. It
(21:10):
eats the waste and then again it feeds the plant
because Mother.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Nature has a cycle and it has to go through
that cycle to clear up, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yes, ma'am. It's like I say, I dance with Mother
Nature and I let her lead because if I don't,
she will smack me. And it happens still today because
all over the state we know we have the rainfall
that we have, they eat the humidity. Florida is a
different creature than what's all over the state. Most of
(21:41):
the manufacturers that I use do bring me in to
teach classes when they have a conference. And that's one
of the things if we can balance the water in Florida.
I don't never prep upond for winter, which just don't
have it. We run twenty four seven three six. Yeah,
so we have a small winter window that the plants
(22:04):
will slow down, but then they'll drive right back. Two.
We had just had that recent freeze. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Oh I bet that was devastating.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Oh it was. But then again, the pond helped maintain
the heat, yeah, from being in the ground, of course,
and then you know it helped the plants somewhat.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
And the fish don't find it because I mean up
north they live underneath the ice.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yes, yeah, they go dormant. And when the water hits
fifty five degrees, you don't want to feed your fish
because your fish don't have a stomach, right, They process
and then they waste. And what you feed your fish
or what you're feeding your pond. So if you're putting
just like ourselves, if you're eating stuff that your body
doesn't know what to do with, well then they waste
(22:51):
it and then the water doesn't know what to do
with it. The bacteria doesn't know what to do with it,
so it just accumulates in the pond.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Wow. Okay, so let's talk about Okay, So can a
water feature be something any homeowner can add to their yard?
And what does a typical water guarden investment look like?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Actually, the we have an eleven by sixteen which is
our kind of go to pond. And when I say turnkey,
we're talking about plants, fish, the filtration. We do two
months worth of maintenance after we get done building. So
the customer they can either take care of the maintenance
(23:31):
or I have my technicians come in and it usually
takes forty five minutes to an hour a week to
take care of that maintenance. And here's the benefit. You
get to get in the water. Yeah, so your flow.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
You can swim with the fishes.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Whoa, hey, easy, wait that dark watch that? Okay those
swimming with the fish. Yes, you can swim with your fish,
but just be easy about that.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Okay, okay, So what are we talking about, coss I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
At eleven by sixteen turnty pond is it runs around
thirty two thousand, okay, and that's full turnkey. We try to,
you know, very professional on the job. When we're on
job site, I even talk to the neighbors to let
them know, Hey, listen, I'm going to have this equipment
in here. I don't mean to block your driveway or
you know. We don't do that because I want the neighbors,
(24:26):
you know, I don't want to come in and have
neighbors aggravated that the neighbor we're working on. So but
that's turnty. And we also build you two ponds. We
build you a pond for the day, we build you
a pond for the night. Because we put lights in ours,
we use the best equipment. When it comes to light,
lights have always been an issue. I use a WASA
(24:48):
PROFILEX lights. They're programmable. You can have soft white light,
right white light, and you can also they're multicolored and
they come pre programmed that you can do like Northern
Lights effect or a fire feature effect. They're really the
best of the best lights. In the ten years i've
been installing them, outside of a lightning strike to the house,
(25:13):
I've not replaced one light. Wow, not one. And in
the past with the other manufacturer's lights, it's light where
they were always something I was pulling my hair out.
It's like one lights down and if one light goes down,
then it's not far behind it, you know the others.
It's just okay.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
So for the easy homeowner, for the DIY people listening,
because there's a lot of them out there and it's
just a simple water feature like a bubbler, And can
they do something for like a couple of hundred dollars
three hundred, four hundred dollars and have something nice that
will fit in a small yard.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
It'll it'll be very very small, very small that we
do any of our we use the basin that holds
depending on off it's small, large or medium. That basin
is your go to to me because you dig the holes,
you put it in and then you put your feature
on top of it. Your pump is located in it.
(26:10):
You can decorate the top of it with any type
of gravel that you wish. Always always always run an
auto fill. So we live in Florida.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Yes, and it evaporates very quickly. Yes, okay, So what
is the largest pond you've ever made by akers? Really? Lloyd? Yeah,
Oh my goodness, how credible is that? Yeah, we'll have
to we'll have to talk.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah, so you picture hired excavators to come in and
do all that, and then laying the liner and welding
it all together.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
And it was I have a heartbreak, Lloyd. I enjoyed
talking with you. I'm gonna have to have you back
on because I have so many more questions. But real quick,
tell people how they can get a hold of you,
and tell us a little bit about your maintenance program.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Uh well, our phone number is eight six three four
one two six three three. I feel we're very conveniently
located in Winterhaven, Florida, right in the center of the state.
We build all over the state. And our website again
is ww dotpondmonster dot com.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Oh that's great.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
And our maintenance program we let you enjoy living the
pond life. If you don't want to touch the filters
and stuff like that. Anything that's ikey, if you don't
want to touch it, you can handle it. And we
come on a once a week basis and we take
care of your pond.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
And so you said anything that's icky, that's another fish pun.
There you go. Okay, Lloyd, thank you so much for
talking with me today. I do enjoy working with you,
and I'll see you soon. So that's a Pond Monster.
If it's Saturday morning, you're listening to Better Lads and
Gardens from the Summit Responsible Solution Studios. I'm Teresa Watkins
(27:54):
and this is Florida's Talk and Entertainment Network. Welcome back
to Better Lawns and Gardens. I want to give a
big thank you to Lloyd Lightsey, the Pondmonster, and that's
Thepondmonster dot com. Uh and he has a wonderful maintenance program.
(28:18):
If you don't want to take care of your pond,
he will do it. So it's really great. Let me
give you some landscaping advice and chores to do indoors
with your foliage. Okay, so right now is the time
to prepare your foolige for fall. You want to reshape
and trim and just go ahead and get it ready.
(28:40):
If you've had them out on the patio and you're
going to be taking them inside, start to look for
insects and issues with your pots so you don't bring
them indoors in your house. Actually, you want to transplant
root bound and poorly drained foliage plants and add new soil.
You want to check for mealy bugs and scale and mites,
and you see that white fuzzy on the on the plants.
(29:03):
That's not good. That's an insect. And you want to
use anim oil eighty five and that's the Summit Responsible
solutionsnem oil, and it is great. You can also start
to take cuttings of your favorite plants before the fall
and go ahead and while they're growing right now, you
can take clippings and root them in water or also
(29:23):
in soil too as well. Indoor plants accumulate dust. When
was the last time you dusted your plants, Lizzie, don't
like you need one more thing to do. I don't
have any plants inside my house. Oh there you go,
so they're all at You have cats there you go.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Yes, yeah, and there and there are just rascally so
they would eat them and no matter what.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
So you don't need the dust. They don't need to
get jump up there the cats and the tail swishes
the leaves and anything. No, so no dusting. Okay. So,
but if you have plants, especially the waxy coated ones,
the hard leaf ones, the sand saveria, the pepper romeias,
go ahead and and you can wipe those clean. You
don't need to put any oil or anything on it.
Just take a damp cloth and wipe it. And sometimes
(30:06):
I even use the lens wipes or even the antibacterial
wipes that you can get, just pull out and just
wipe it down and that'll be really good and it'll
keep the dust down. And then also to the insects.
You want to see if any light, even if any
plants that are leaning towards the light. Okay you've heard
(30:29):
go towards the light. Well, you want to make sure
you twist your plants and turn them so that the
whole pot gets enough light. So now the time to
do it. Just go ahead and set up a regular
timeframe once a month. You just want to turn it,
you know, one hundred and eighty degrees and that way
they're not going to be so light starved. That's called heliotropism.
(30:50):
And heliotropism is when the plants start reaching for the sun.
And you even see it outdoors in shaded areas. You'll
see plants go ahead and growing outside of the shade canopy,
and that just means they're just looking for a little
bit more sunlight. Your orchids and bromeliads inside you can
put outdoors in the shade. You can hang your orchids.
This is a good time to do it because in
(31:12):
a few weeks, in about six to eight weeks, we're
going to temperature is going to start to go down.
And when there's a twenty degree temperature change, when we
go like from one hundred to eighty or even ninety
to seventy, that's going to start the cycle for your
orchids to start blooming again. So go ahead and hang
them outside. Let them enjoy the heat and the humidity.
(31:34):
They thrive with that. You just want to make sure
they're out of the sunlight. You want to make sure
that you put them in complete shade. And then in
same with your bromeliads too, if they're in pots, put
them in shade. And then when you know, right before
we start to get the really cold temperatures in October,
we'll tell you to bring them on in and they
(31:56):
should go ahead and bloom for you. You Also, if
you have large plants in your yard, are in your
in your house or patio, you want to divide the
clump forming foliage plants like spathophylom and san saveria, go
ahead and divide them up and have new ones. You
can give them to friends and family. Uh, but also
too you can just have more pots of containers of plants,
(32:16):
and the more the merrier, so that'll be good vegetables
and fruit care is very very important. And I can
take your message at or gardening questions. I'm just looking
at the time here one triple eight four five, five,
two nine sixty seven or text two three six eight
zero and then also two if you'd like to travel
(32:37):
with me to be inspired by beautiful gardens and just
see all the great things you can do in your garden,
and I will tell you going to gardens uh up
north and across the Midwest, and then also too across
the pond that inspires you. We can do that here
in Florida, and when I travel with you, we talk
(32:59):
about how to incorporate that into Florida. But also too,
guests that come from other parts of the country, I
can tell you how to design gardens like we see
on our garden tours that's artbloomgardentours dot com. And we
have our Newport show up. We do have room available
still for our friends tour the Artista gardens of France.
(33:20):
And when is that well, that is in March. Okay,
all right, so I'm sorry, take it back April April, Okay. Now,
in March we have the Florida Spring Break for gardeners,
which is going to be a lot of fun, especially
if you're up north coming down in March after having
a long winter, you're ready from some springtime. Our Florida
spring Break in March is a great, great tour. Oh
(33:40):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
So if you you may, you'll need a passport for
some of these, so you need to go hand get
that in now, because we're now getting to the end
of the year and it may take a while.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
So it does. It takes a good three to four months,
and you start to panic if you don't get it exactly.
So they go to your website.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
They'll find out the costs and they can either sign
up and or get on a waiting list for all
your upcoming events.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Correct again. The website is art in bloomgardentours dot com.
And we have trips to the Chelsea Flower Show if
you've never been. It's just one of the bucket lists
I say bouquet list. We spell it bucket but it's
pronounced bouquet and it's one something you can go to
every year because it's always different every year and we
(34:21):
go to different gardens and then also to the Newport
Flower Show is in June, and we're going to Martha's
Vineyard and into Boston to some fantastic places. And then
in July we do our Wonderful it's one of our
popular garden tours, the Garden Walk Buffalo and Niagara Falls
in Canada. In August we're going to Scotland, to the
(34:44):
Highlands in Scotland and see beautiful gardens there. September we
are doing the Hudson the Gilded Age River Valley. We're
going up to the Hudson Valley, Hudson River Valley and
seeing beautiful gardens there and all the beautiful mansions. And
then in October we're doing a fall foliage and beautiful
gardens and we're going to go to some famous landscape
(35:04):
designers gardens.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
And this is all for twenty seven, correct, This is
all for twenty twenty seven. Yes, And the best part
about these tours is that it's it's personal, so it's
not like a huge group of like, you know, hundreds
of people going yeah, big buffloads and yeah, and you
don't get to see Teresa and Tony and chat with
them and get information.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
And it's small groups, all group small groups and delicious
food and wonderful hotels. So we'd really do it all.
And there's just plenty of time to look at beautiful gardens,
and so we'd love.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
To have you with it and gardens and stuff that
you don't get to see or you get to see
before an event. Because Teresa, you know, Teresa's just got
that much clout. She's just that cool. So she's award winning.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
So I don't like to be in crowds. And so
you know, when we do the garden Walk Buffalo, instead
of going the weekend where seventy thousand people come because
it is the largest garden walk in the United States,
we go a couple of weeks before and we're the
only ones in the gardens. So we love doing that.
So and then I can introduce you to some of
my friends and so it'll be great and we can
(36:10):
just geek out at plants also, so vegetable and fruit care,
mango trees. If your mango trees still has brown leaves
on them, go ahead and see if that branch has died.
You're going to have to trim it back. The same
with your avocado tree. You want it to be ready
and now. You want to do it now, because if
we do it later in the year, it's that new
(36:31):
growth is going to be more susceptible to freezing. So
go ahead and cut your damaged fruit tree branches and
leaves off now so that it can grow more leaves
and they can harden off before we get our major
freezes in late December and in January. Now, sometimes we
get a major freeze at the end of November and December,
(36:54):
which I kind of enjoy because I love the cold
weather during holidays season. It makes the hot cocoa and
all the fun things that you do during the holiday
season much better. But you want to make sure your
plants are taken care of. Check your pineapples. They should
be ready. Check them before the raccoons and the possums
get them, and even the bears and squirrels. If they're fragrant,
(37:17):
very fragrant, and they're turning yellow to orange, this is
go ahead and take them inside. You want to feed
your bananas and figs monthly. You want to keep the
soil moist. And you can even cut off the dead
branches for bananas and cut them up because they're full
of potassium, and just lay them around the base of
your banana and that'll give it some great nutrition. Also too,
(37:41):
this is the time again get a soil test before
we fertilize. Go ahead, and you can put good composts.
Don't get cheap composts. Get good compost and put it
into your raised beds and your garden beds. Okay, So
make sure you're doing that. In that way, you're not
gonna have to deal with the the weeds which are
(38:02):
so so prominent in really cheap soil. So if you've
started your tomatoes, peppers and eggplants, they should be right
now going into your raised beds or moving them up
to a bigger pot, or thinning them out so that
they have room to grow and so they don't have
a lot of competition. Okay. I want to give a
big thank you to all our callers. We had some
(38:25):
great callers today and then also listeners. We just so
appreciate our listeners absolutely.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
And also Tom from Lake Nona just sent a text
in and said that he appreciates the pond Monster very good.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
There you go. Thank you so much to Lloyd Lights
the Pondmonster. That's thepwnmonster dot com. We're going to be
back next week with some more Better Logs and Gardens
and gardening questions For Saturday morning, you're listening to Better
Logs and Gardens from the Summit Responsible Solution Studios. I'm
Teresa Watkins, and this is Florida's Talk and Entertainment Network.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
If you missed any of the show or want to
recap any other shows, just go to Better Lawns dot com.
That's Better Lawns dot com, or even search Better Lawns
and Gardens anywhere on the Internet, or just search Teresa
Watkins because she's just cool like that.
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