White Water

In the spring, I installed a pond, and it has kept me amused all summer. The vigour with which pond plants grow and spread has been a revelation, and very encouraging for a pond-neophyte. This may be partly due to the garden soil I used for planting in - being naive about the advantages of specialist pond compost. Sadly, the rich aquatic environment I have so ingenuously created is equally encouraging to blanket weed - the tangled algal bloom that haunts the nightmares of pond-keepers. Luckily for me, solutions are at hand, in the form of a variety of white powers that must be stirred - warlock like - into a can of rainwater, before sprinkling it across the surface of the pond. The effect is to convert the pond water into a Pernod-like, milky medium with a somewhat ghostly aspect. Combined with the autumn colours of the plants, this temporary state turns out to be quite mesmeric

It occurs to me that this zealous constraint of the burgeoning algae makes me a front-line representative of the anti-growth coalition. Please get me the papers and show me where to sign