Welcome to the forum! Where in AB are you located??? I live in Central AB and have been running a pond for 7 years now. As to your plants. As long as the water lilies were under water they might survive. I've accidentally left iris in their pots beside the pond and they've overwintered. I've never been able to overwinter pickeral either in the pond or buried in the garden. Plants that have overwintered in the pond are iris, lilies, bog bean, dwarf cattail, manna grass, water forget-me-not and another grass that is varigated green/gold--can't remember the name. Hornwort sometimes comes back and so has frogbit.
My pond is still in ice mode. When it unthaws I'll retrieve the lilies from the bottom and raise them up in the shallow end to get them growing. I do not run my pond in the winter as havn't had any luck trying to overwinter fish even with airstone/pump so I move my fish indoors for the winter.
Best place I've found to get water plants is Anna's Water Gardens in Blackfalls. High quality and good prices. They also have koi and goldfish. They sell water lettuce, hyacinth, parrots feather which might do well in a spillway. I havn't had much luck with hyacinth or water lettuce. Might be my ph as is high 8.5 and alkaline water. The bog bean I have has overwintered in the pond for two years now so may get more as it's not overly aggressive. My iris didn't bloom last year but had repotted them and then we had that cold spring last year so everything was very slow in growing. Hope this helps. Patti

Hi,
I am up in Edmonton. I had overwintered everything the winter before but when I left for work the pond was full and when I got back the only water left was in the deeper section leaving the lillies, pickerel weed, etc. totally exposed. The only thing showing signs of life are the marshmarigolds. I throw in a stock tank heater for the winter and leave the spillway running. It keeps the whole pond oopen except on the coldest days so I have to top up regularly. I do alot of shopping at Holes Garden center and a place called Khulmans, they get a pretty good selection even if they don't know much about what they have. I have manged to overwinter some zone 6 and 7 plants in the pond this way but I am not sure what will survive flash freezing like they did. I am planning to rip the pond apart shortly but I don't want to wait too long to get started so I would rather not wait to see what will eventually sprout. Thanks for your help

What size is your pond? What do you mean by a spillway? I ran a 1500W stock tank heater in my 300gal indoor liner tank in my unheated garage last year but the electricty costs were so high I moved the tank back into the house for this winter. Do you keep fish in your pond? Mine is only 2500 gals with another 400 gals filtration. Kinda went overboard with the filtration as have shubunkins, wakins, comets and two butterfly koi but I wanted external pump setup. Are you building a new pond? Nice to hear someone from way up north. Patti

My pond is about 6 foot by 5 foot oval and about 18 inches deep with a little 24 inch area, 1200-1500 gallons if I remember right. I have a 1200 watt tank heater in it for the winter.It is inground with a flexible liner. The spillway is just a little preformed 3 tier. The tiers are about 4x4x5 inches deep so I put in plants and gravel for extra filtratiion. I have 7 comets that have been in there for 2 years, had a bunch of babies that survived until the second time the pond drained. The electricity is pricey but it is my lttle vice and it balances against the cost of the hubby's comp. games. I would love to find a solar panel set up to run the system but I haven't got that far yet. Oh and I run a 2000gph sump pump for the spillway and a 150 gph pond pump with a small box filter. I don't really have room for a second pond but I am going to pull up the liner and dig the whole thing down to 24 inches deep this year, the water lillies need more depth. There is a plant ledge all the way around that I gravel and put plants on, still trying to find the perfect combo for that. I have marsh marigolds and iris, sagittaria that have come back every year. It is sure is nice to have somebody in the neighborhood to compare notes with.

Would it be possible to email each other? I'm curious about how you keep your pond running with that depth and manage to keep the fish alive. I've ran just an air stone but no heater in the pond but the fish didn't survive. How do you like the snow today? So much for starting up the pond as it's supposed to go down to -9C by Friday. The joys of living in Alberta.

I'm a bit farther south than you, but I can definitely say that Pickerel is one tough plant! I had some in my filter box last summer, and when I cleaned the filter in the fall, I set the pots of pickerel aside -- and forgot about them. They were sitting there behind the filter box all winter -- no water except the occasional rain, and were completely exposed to the snow and ice and freezing temperatures.

I found them last month, and to my surprise there were little green sprouts coming up through the gravel. I immediately watered them, and they're growing like, well, like weeds!

Thanks,
I have seen lots of stuff that says they are hardy but... I got them because they are hardy hope I will keep them. Waiting patiently to see what happens