With spring around the corner, there’s no time like the present to start planning your warm weather lake care measures. Whether you have a lake that you’d like to maintain but never do, or you always start the maintenance process late, this blog is for you. Below, we cover the importance of starting the maintenance process when the branches start budding and what measures to take if you haven’t performed maintenance before.
The Early Bird Gets the Worm
The biggest reason to perform early maintenance early is the terrific plant growth that lakes encourage. Due to their moist soil and a steady supply of animal and reptile droppings at their inner banks, most lakes facilitate more plant life than their nearby surroundings, and can eventually create an encirclement of impenetrable cattails, briars, and other tough weeds, a barrier that renders a lake as useless as it is unsightly.
Getting the right Lake Maintenance Supplies
Defending against bank weeds could take several paths, the most reliable being the application of herbicides that target weeds that invade your region’s ponds and lakes. And if you fancy a manicured, grassy bank, you can apply conventional weed killers after that. If not, you’ll still be in for an easy summer of weed eating around your lake’s perimeter instead of weed whacking dense, tough growth.
Algaecides Versus Water Dyes
In addition to applying herbicides, it’s also important to apply to algaecide in quantities that prevent excess algae but that don’t inhibit its growth altogether. Water dyes are also recommended as algae inhibitors, but they only inhibit deep algae by limiting reception of UV rays, meaning you should still buy algaecide for surface algae, which could overtake your lake’s surface if left unchecked.
Best Approach for Tree and Limb Removal
By killing weeds before they start, you’ll also make it easier to (a) remove any trees or limbs that fall into your water over the summer and (b) spend time removing any trees or limbs fell into it in seasons past. If you’re planning on tackling an untamed pond that features dead trees or limbs, you’ll be inclined to do the “big work” first. However, the big work would be killing tons of vegetation in hotter weather and cutting and raking it away.
Improving Your Lake’s Color
Once your water is free of weeds, algae, and debris, it’s time to address its color. Without lake dye, most lakes stay a greenish brown. But with the dye, their color can be improved to a refreshing blue, a majestic blue/black, a summery aqua, or a reflective black. The dye is safe and non-staining for humans, animals and fish, and works best in lakes that have a moderate water turnover rate, the rate at which new water cycles in as existing water cycles out.
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