Floating gardens installed at Kelowna’s Redlich Pond

Six floating gardens designed to improve water quality have been installed at Redlich Pond in Kelowna.

The bio-island floating gardens are two-metres by four-metres each and have approximately 80 planting holes, allowing for a total of 480 plants to float on the pond.

The gardens, which are all linked together, are built of a buoyant plastic matrix with a planting system in place to support the plants.

The pond in Old Glenmore was originally a wetland and orchard property, but became part of the stormwater infrastructure when the area was developed for residential properties.

After the development, the pond became naturalized and grew to be larger and deeper than its original form.

“Redlich Pond receives water run-off from the lower Glenmore neighbourhood, parts of Clifton Road as well as surrounding neighbourhoods,” said Jason Jenson, the City of Kelowna’s Infrastructure Delivery Design Technician.

“The floating bio-islands contain plants that are designed to provide additional passive biological remediation and treatment in the pond before this stormwater drains into Brandt’s Creek and discharges into Okanagan Lake.”

The floating gardens will be positioned in the centre of the pond where the water is deep enough to negate the impact of flows or disruptions from the ponds environment.

The plants will feed off the nutrients found in the pond.

A concept drawing of how the bio-islands installed at Redlich Pond work (image courtesy of the City of Kelowna)

“The total surface area of the pond covered by bio-islands will be 42 square metres, or approximately one per cent of the total pond surface area,” Jenson explained.

“Only native aquatic emergent vegetation will be used, for example, sandbar willow, soft-stemmed bulrush, small-flowered bulrush and beaked sedge.”

The water in the pond will be tested periodically to measure the success of the plants impact to the water. Adjustments will be made, if necessary, to ensure the water entering the natural systems and Okanagan Lake is of good quality and will not have any adverse effects on the other bodies of water.