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Summertime maintenance
Keep fertilizing your water lilies. They are heavy feeders and will keep blooming until October when the days start to shorten or until the temperatures sink below 55 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you have lotus, they want more fertilizer than water lilies. I feed them at least twice weekly, even every 10 days, with one aquatic plant tab per gallon of pot. You rarely have to fertilize other pond plants because fish waste takes care of that for you, but if you are not satisfied with a plant's growth, stick an aquatic plant tab in those too. You may wish to stagger your feeding because aquatic plant tabs fertilize all the plants in the pond, including the dreaded green algae that will grab nutrients before they can get to what you really want to feed. Bury the plant tabs in the pots and make sure they are covered with soil or sand.

Floating plants
I keep at least 70% of the top of the pond covered with floating plants like water hyacinths, water clover and water lilies, especially in the summer, to give the fish some shade and some places to hide from predators. Egrets, herons, raccoons and even your own Labrador retriever are looking for extra food and your pond is a brand new all-you-can-eat buffet that you laid out especially for them. I even suggest making a cave for your fish. You can buy them already made or make your own out of a couple of flower pots on their sides or a flat rock on top of a couple of block-shaped ones. The fish don't care how fancy their new digs are, as long as they are safe.