You know, if I ever write a gardening book, there is going
to be at least one chapter dedicated to PONDS.
And, may I say, having a pond is not for wimps! It is hard, frustrating, dirty work unless,
of course, you are smart enough to have all the design work, plumbing,
electricity, and digging done by professionals.
I’ve had ponds and now, I think, they are sort of like snow – pretty, an
interesting effect to a yard and best enjoyed from a photo.
First of all, if you are starting with grass covered yard,
stop. You really don’t want to do this
without a fair amount of research, time, strength, patience, and help. My first suggestion is – start with a
fountain. Ah, you say, is that what you
did? Oh hell no – certainly not. We did the whole “start with grass and dig a
hole, etc” thing. And please note – the
term “we” is used very loosely.
My first mistake, back when we lived in Galveston, was even
mentioning to Michael that I wanted a pond.
I was originally thinking about a 20 gallon puddle and he envisioned
Lake Houston. One day he
came home from work and announced that he had bought a pond form – it would
arrive the next day. It was a stock
reservoir that held about 1000 gallons of water. Great – a 1000 gallon pond – oh good. OK, I got to do all the digging (oh joy) for (1)
a hole big enough to hold the big blue tank and (2) the trench(es) for the
electricity for the pump, necessary to keep the water from turning a delightful shade of
puke green.
As I look back, the pump and filter arrangement, we used,
was perhaps not the best choice but we went into the whole pond thing blind
with no research and only a vague idea of what would work. These days bogs and bio-filter systems are a
better, somewhat easier choice. By the
way, don’t ever go to water-garden stores.
They just appeal to your unreasonable sense of “I NEEEEEEED THIS” and
“how hard can it be?”. Remember, those
people are professionals and it can be really, really hard.
I wanted to grow water plants. MHN wanted fish. Well, that should be ok – right? We located the pond in the sun. Good thing/bad thing. Yes, I could grow water plants, I also grew
all kinds icky, nasty algae. MHN
acquired coy and gold fish and one day, an Oscar fish. Then he brought home a turtle he’d found on
the side of the road. You know what all
those things do in water besides swim – right?
Cleaning the pump filter material was almost a daily job. Ick.
HA! I discovered that a variety of plants would help filter the
water. Cool! A new problem arose, between the coy and
turtle, the plants would get eaten to the dirt.
I decided to try water hyacinth which is a free-floating
perennial plant that helps to filter the water.
Unfortunately, it is also a non-native, invasive, noxious plant that can
form thick mats. If it escapes into the natural freshwater ways, the mats will cover
the entire surface and cause oxygen depletions and fish kills. (Water hyacinths
should be controlled very carefully.) The
water hyacinths worked well plus the turtle and fish ate them and I had a
system to make sure they did not escape into the world. Yea!
And, it only took us 2 years to get it all working!
Tomorrow: Moving a 1000 gallon pond, fish, a turtle and
plants …..
Take care
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