Hi, I've been lurking for a bit, and decided to introduce myself.
I've been gardening for a few years, since we moved into our wheelchair accessible home in 2009. I grow orchids and tomatoes and a variety of perennials, feed my birdies and otherwise enjoy the summers outdoors, putzing in my garden.
Early this spring, the old, cement two-tier water fountain that we inherited when we moved in began to disintegrate. It was situated on a two-tier cement apron in a corner of our yard. While I was pondering what to replace it with, I happened to notice some ledge stone left over from another project that was stacked up in a different corner and thought, "Hmmmmmm. Honey, wouldn't that ledge stone make a nice waterfall slash bird bath?"
The biggest problem I could see was that the best solution would be to remove the cement apron before digging. But my DH, who does an awful lot around the house, was not likely to be willing to swing a sledge hammer to bust up and haul out that cement. So we tried to come up with a solution that would situate the "bird bath" over the cement apron.
Getting completely confused about all the parts and elements I would need, I decided to buy a "Happy Koi Pond kit", complete with pump, skimmer, filter falls, liner and underlayment. It turned out to be way more than we needed.
This shows the first course of retaining wall that DH built for behind the falls.
The skimmer was the biggest surprise, as in WAY bigger than I had envisioned. We had to excavate an area to the right of the apron to put it in (it's the area with woodchips in the foreground of the before photo.) In this photo you can see part of the walkway we installed around the yard for my wheelchair. The apron butts right up to it.
We had a lot of discussion about how far above ground we could go. Here you can see the sandstone slabs we used to create the boundaries. Because I wanted to be able to see "inside" the pond from the house from my wheelchair, we couldn't go as high up as I would have liked.
The liner went over the underlayment, which we thought was important because it would be sitting on such a hard surface, not dirt.
Starting to build the falls.
Situating the water fall.
It works!
My best friend helped me with the "decorating" by helping place all the decorative rocks and plants. Then, while picking up some cat food with my DH, I said, "What do you think of putting in a couple goldfish?" We lost quite a few to a pesky raccoon until I put in the plants and we made some "caves" for the fish to hide in. They've been safe since. You can see the falls on the right has turned black from algae. That is before I learned the wonder of barley pellets.
A week after adding the barley, the black algae was gone.
I hesitate to call this a pond, because we've only got about 50 or 60 gallons in there, and the deepest part is right in front of the skimmer...the majority is only 6 inches deep, and the upper step is less than an inch.
But we have fallen in love this with pond, and have had far more enjoyment from this than the old fountain.
Those itty bitty 28-cent feeder fish are now 3 and 4 inches long. Now I'm worried about how they will survive the winter.
DH has put his foot down. No aquariums.
I've been gardening for a few years, since we moved into our wheelchair accessible home in 2009. I grow orchids and tomatoes and a variety of perennials, feed my birdies and otherwise enjoy the summers outdoors, putzing in my garden.
Early this spring, the old, cement two-tier water fountain that we inherited when we moved in began to disintegrate. It was situated on a two-tier cement apron in a corner of our yard. While I was pondering what to replace it with, I happened to notice some ledge stone left over from another project that was stacked up in a different corner and thought, "Hmmmmmm. Honey, wouldn't that ledge stone make a nice waterfall slash bird bath?"
The biggest problem I could see was that the best solution would be to remove the cement apron before digging. But my DH, who does an awful lot around the house, was not likely to be willing to swing a sledge hammer to bust up and haul out that cement. So we tried to come up with a solution that would situate the "bird bath" over the cement apron.
Getting completely confused about all the parts and elements I would need, I decided to buy a "Happy Koi Pond kit", complete with pump, skimmer, filter falls, liner and underlayment. It turned out to be way more than we needed.
This shows the first course of retaining wall that DH built for behind the falls. The skimmer was the biggest surprise, as in WAY bigger than I had envisioned. We had to excavate an area to the right of the apron to put it in (it's the area with woodchips in the foreground of the before photo.) In this photo you can see part of the walkway we installed around the yard for my wheelchair. The apron butts right up to it. We had a lot of discussion about how far above ground we could go. Here you can see the sandstone slabs we used to create the boundaries. Because I wanted to be able to see "inside" the pond from the house from my wheelchair, we couldn't go as high up as I would have liked. The liner went over the underlayment, which we thought was important because it would be sitting on such a hard surface, not dirt. Starting to build the falls. Situating the water fall. It works! My best friend helped me with the "decorating" by helping place all the decorative rocks and plants. Then, while picking up some cat food with my DH, I said, "What do you think of putting in a couple goldfish?" We lost quite a few to a pesky raccoon until I put in the plants and we made some "caves" for the fish to hide in. They've been safe since. You can see the falls on the right has turned black from algae. That is before I learned the wonder of barley pellets. A week after adding the barley, the black algae was gone.I hesitate to call this a pond, because we've only got about 50 or 60 gallons in there, and the deepest part is right in front of the skimmer...the majority is only 6 inches deep, and the upper step is less than an inch.
But we have fallen in love this with pond, and have had far more enjoyment from this than the old fountain.
Those itty bitty 28-cent feeder fish are now 3 and 4 inches long. Now I'm worried about how they will survive the winter.
DH has put his foot down. No aquariums.
