Hey everyone!
I've largely been a stalker on this site for the last 2 months as i've been planning and building my first pond, and i've learned TONS, so thank you! A few stats on the pond before I give you the sordid details:
It's a small setup - I think around 500 gallons not including the bog area (note to self, calculate your gallons, girlfriend!). Lower pond is a preformed unit around 18" deep that I already owned. An overpowered (compared to what i'm used to) Laguna 2900 pumps water up to a bog area thats around 4x4 x 12" deep. There's a small waterfall to a middle pond area (for now, this will be for lillies and plants) that's 16" deep and approximately 7 x 5. Then another waterfall back down to the pre-fabbed unit.
The story begins earlier this summer, when I purchased my new home. My old home had a small preformed unit -- I wasn't the one who installed it -- but you can bet I took it with me when I moved
. At the new house, I was on a time-crunch to get the fishies (15 feeder goldfish I've had for a few years) into the ground so they would have a place to spend the winter - for the months of June, July and August, I had them hanging out in a whiskey barrel on my back patio). My new house is less than a mile from my old house and the little guys did well every winter for the past 3 years, including snowmageddon, in just 16" of water here in 7a - I plan to go deeper once I "redo everything" but I'm hopeful this setup will tide them over for a year or two.
My new setup was sort of a rush job, lol. Money is tight while I get used to the new mortgage, and the only rocks I used were ones I brought with me from the old house (moving those from old house to new was NOT FUN. Then again, moving in general is definitely NOT FUN, lol!). I bought a 10 x 15 EPDM liner from Amazon using my Discover card points with free shipping (yay!) and got a good deal on the laguna pump online.
Because my yard has a slope away from the house, and I didn't have a good supply of river rock at my disposal, I decided to go with a build technique I found online called the raised edge method. I didn't have to do a whole lot of digging, and what dirt I did dig out, went right into the surrounding berms for planting beds, so not a lot of waste. Not sure how it will hold up long term, but for now, it seems to be holding my liner in place nicely. I'm hiding the liner using Rock on a Roll (i'm not affilliated with the company in any way, just a happy customer, so far!). I'm not crazy about the horizontal line I have showing around the top edge of everything, hopefully once the plants grow in, it won't be as apparent.
Here's a few pics (these pics are a few weeks old, it's changed a little bit since then, and will likely continue to change):
So, the system holds water, no leaks to speak of, and there's been all sorts of tweaking going on. On the agenda for this week is to bury PVC into the bog (yeah, should have done that before putting in the gravel, but meh :alieneyesa, continue hunting for better waterfall stones (right now I'm using slate that I happened to have on hand, but i'm still not happy with how they have turned out), more rocks to hide the liner and the raised edge. Oh, and plants!
So far, i have parrots feather, anacharis, and some rushes in the pond proper, and a few creeping jennies in the bog. I didn't get floaters this year with all the craziness of the move, so fishies will have to do without until spring. I am soooooo impatient and want to add more to the bog, but i'm worried they won't have time to establish themselves before winter. Do you all think it's too late in the season to add any bog plants? I plan to shut down the pump to the bog over winter, so it more than likely will freeze.
The main reason I'm here is to help plan for expansion! Long term, i'd like to move the preformed liner to the front yard and in the back, go bigger and deeper on the lower pond! Of course, a few things need to happen first - I may need to put a fence around my property - not sure if a pond counts as a pool, but if so, then county regs say I need one for anything deeper than 18". My house backs to a forest (note to self - raccoon-proof the new setup) and we don't have any little ones to worry about, so I have some research and question-asking ahead of me. I also need to get a supply of big-daddy, grown-up rocks to match my big-daddy grown-up pump (I used to have a teeny tiny fountain spitter in my old setup, so having this laguna makes me feel like an adult, lol!). And, of course I need to plan, plan, plan!
Anywho, Just wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and ask a question or two! :banana: Looking forward to continuing to absorb tons of info, and maybe even being able to contribute a little bit!
Kindest regards,
Michele
I've largely been a stalker on this site for the last 2 months as i've been planning and building my first pond, and i've learned TONS, so thank you! A few stats on the pond before I give you the sordid details:
It's a small setup - I think around 500 gallons not including the bog area (note to self, calculate your gallons, girlfriend!). Lower pond is a preformed unit around 18" deep that I already owned. An overpowered (compared to what i'm used to) Laguna 2900 pumps water up to a bog area thats around 4x4 x 12" deep. There's a small waterfall to a middle pond area (for now, this will be for lillies and plants) that's 16" deep and approximately 7 x 5. Then another waterfall back down to the pre-fabbed unit.
The story begins earlier this summer, when I purchased my new home. My old home had a small preformed unit -- I wasn't the one who installed it -- but you can bet I took it with me when I moved
. At the new house, I was on a time-crunch to get the fishies (15 feeder goldfish I've had for a few years) into the ground so they would have a place to spend the winter - for the months of June, July and August, I had them hanging out in a whiskey barrel on my back patio). My new house is less than a mile from my old house and the little guys did well every winter for the past 3 years, including snowmageddon, in just 16" of water here in 7a - I plan to go deeper once I "redo everything" but I'm hopeful this setup will tide them over for a year or two.My new setup was sort of a rush job, lol. Money is tight while I get used to the new mortgage, and the only rocks I used were ones I brought with me from the old house (moving those from old house to new was NOT FUN. Then again, moving in general is definitely NOT FUN, lol!). I bought a 10 x 15 EPDM liner from Amazon using my Discover card points with free shipping (yay!) and got a good deal on the laguna pump online.
Because my yard has a slope away from the house, and I didn't have a good supply of river rock at my disposal, I decided to go with a build technique I found online called the raised edge method. I didn't have to do a whole lot of digging, and what dirt I did dig out, went right into the surrounding berms for planting beds, so not a lot of waste. Not sure how it will hold up long term, but for now, it seems to be holding my liner in place nicely. I'm hiding the liner using Rock on a Roll (i'm not affilliated with the company in any way, just a happy customer, so far!). I'm not crazy about the horizontal line I have showing around the top edge of everything, hopefully once the plants grow in, it won't be as apparent.
Here's a few pics (these pics are a few weeks old, it's changed a little bit since then, and will likely continue to change
):So, the system holds water, no leaks to speak of, and there's been all sorts of tweaking going on. On the agenda for this week is to bury PVC into the bog (yeah, should have done that before putting in the gravel, but meh :alieneyesa
, continue hunting for better waterfall stones (right now I'm using slate that I happened to have on hand, but i'm still not happy with how they have turned out), more rocks to hide the liner and the raised edge. Oh, and plants!So far, i have parrots feather, anacharis, and some rushes in the pond proper, and a few creeping jennies in the bog. I didn't get floaters this year with all the craziness of the move, so fishies will have to do without until spring. I am soooooo impatient and want to add more to the bog, but i'm worried they won't have time to establish themselves before winter. Do you all think it's too late in the season to add any bog plants? I plan to shut down the pump to the bog over winter, so it more than likely will freeze.
The main reason I'm here is to help plan for expansion! Long term, i'd like to move the preformed liner to the front yard and in the back, go bigger and deeper on the lower pond! Of course, a few things need to happen first - I may need to put a fence around my property - not sure if a pond counts as a pool, but if so, then county regs say I need one for anything deeper than 18". My house backs to a forest (note to self - raccoon-proof the new setup) and we don't have any little ones to worry about, so I have some research and question-asking ahead of me. I also need to get a supply of big-daddy, grown-up rocks to match my big-daddy grown-up pump (I used to have a teeny tiny fountain spitter in my old setup, so having this laguna makes me feel like an adult, lol!). And, of course I need to plan, plan, plan!
Anywho, Just wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and ask a question or two! :banana: Looking forward to continuing to absorb tons of info, and maybe even being able to contribute a little bit!
Kindest regards,
Michele
