My wife has
been wanting a pond for quite some time now, so this year we finally got
around to starting the project. I'm no pond expert, but I definitely
learned a lot about what to do and what not to do while working on this
project. I'll share some of those things with you as we tour the project.
I hope you find this page interesting and fun.
Unfortunately
all the construction photo's are on video tape, so I don't have them to put
on this page, but you'll get the idea. The finished photo's are here
though.
Step 1:
Decide how big to make the pond..........100 gallons, 500 gallons, oh well,
lets be a little Tim Allen'ish about it and go at least 1000 gallons. (my
fault, all my wife wanted was 100 gallons or so in a preformed plastic pond,
sure would have easier now that I think about it)
Step 2:
Assuming you didn't listen to your wife as I didn't, dig a very large hole.
Oh heck, why not two holes! To really appreciate this you must DO IT BY
HAND! (she wouldn't let me rent a backhoe either...).
Step 3: Don't use a
level while digging your pond because eyeballing is more fun and
besides then you wouldn't get to do it all over again when you find out your
eyeballs are crooked!
Step 4: Don't
accurately measure your pond because then you would only have to make one
trip to Home Depot (or store of your choice) for pond liner. It's much more
fun to have to make 3..well er' I guess it was 5 or so...trips to the store
because you under estimated or added something you didn't plan for.
Step 5:
Convince the guys at the store that their 1500 lb. capacity rental truck can
handle 3000 lbs. so you don't have to make two trips hauling the patio and
retaining wall blocks..only to have to remove half the load and make two
trips anyways.
Step 5 1/2:
Fill the pond....
Step 6: Haul
rocks....lots of rocks! We filled two 3/4 ton pickups with stones for landscaping. On the second trip we filled them with larger boulders and mulch.
Step 7:
Enlist all your kids, the kids friends, and the fiancé's to help lay stone
and patio blocks...(trust me you'll need it). They did it all for food,
guess I got the best end of that deal!
Once you have
that completed, you can can start adding plants and fish. They recommend
you wait at least two weeks to add fish but don't listen, it's more fun to
spend money and scoop em' out the next day a little less than full of life.
We have four painted turtles that we hatched from eggs in 1999 that we added
to the new pond, and they ate their share too. The turtles seem to prefer
to eat the heads off the minnows and leave the rest. ( I guess they thought
they could destroy more that way.) So far, at least most of the Goldfish
have survived.
OK, so here we
go with some photo's:
It all starts with a small waterfall...
Then you need a stream going down to the pond...
The stream runs into the first pond....
Which flows into the lower pond...
with an Angel to guard the fish (well it was worth a shot anyways.
And when all the work is done you have
this:
It's a lot
of fun and so relaxing to sit near the pond with all the mosquitoes buzzing
around (there big this year too!). I guess we'll have to add a bat house to
help keep the "skeeters'" under control. More on that later when it's
built.
New Patriotism Section
