extreme newb

[jlcolvin]

Hello all, my name is Jason and my wife and I just bought our first home. The previous owner of the home had a quite large butterfly garden in the front yard. Personally I believe it is too large and I would like to make that space useful for something other than just butterflies.

My wife and I live in Baker, FL and we are both originally from the Tampa area. We are both Mechanical Engineers and have 3 beagles.

My wife has expressed some interest in keeping the butterfly garden as is. When asked when she would start tending it, she responded with, "My mom wants to take care of it". Naturally that response made me want to take a mower to the whole garden and bring in some sod :nananananana: .

I've always wanted a garden pond or other water feature and think it would be great in the butterfly garden. I also am of the mindset that I would be building this for me so I also thought about doing it in my backyard. I am still trying to decide but I am leaning towards doing it in the butterfly garden. I still have a ton of research to do so I'll have plenty of time to make that final decision.

I just wanted to stop in and introduce myself. I'll try to post a picture of the tentative pond location very soon. I look forward to interacting with all of you and learning from your posts.

Jason

 

[koikeepr]

welcome jl! We look forward to helping you put in a pond!

 

[koidaddy]

Welcome. St Pete area here.

 

[jlcolvin]

Thank you for the welcomes. I have done some searching during my lunch break and glanced through at some of the pictures. Really impressive ponds in this little corner of the internet . I can't wait until I can start my "project" thread to show the build up of my first pond

 

[DrDave]

Welcome Jason, looking forward to seeing your yard and helping you with your water features.

 

[jlcolvin]

still haven't gotten around to getting a picture of the area in question. We have had family in town for the past week and so it has been hard to find time to do anything. Here is an overhead image of our yard, the blue line is the lot line (1 acre lot) and the red is the butterfly garden where I want to put the pond. Next step is convincing the wife

 

[koikeepr]

We were just conversing about this in another thread, but if your front yard is not fenced in, I would not put the pond in the front. It is dangerous to small children, you could potentially have smart-alecky teenagers do harm to it, etc.

 

[jlcolvin]

hmmm, that is one aspect I didn't think about yet. Thank you for bringing it to my attention

 

[DrDave]

And one of those Juvinile Delinquents might drown while damaging your pond and his family then sue you for negligence.

 

[koikeepr]

you've got plenty of yardage in the back for this. Make your wife happy with the butterflies and make a pond oasis on the back you can enjoy. You both win, then!

 

[jlcolvin]

ok got around to getting some pictures

here is the back of the house and back yard

here are some of the garden

still up in the air about the final location of the pond. there is a lot of clearing that needs to be done in the backyard before I could even think about doing anything. our neighborhood is really quiet and everyone we have talked to have never heard of any problems whatsoever.

 

[koikeepr]

Nice! You've got a lot of potential for a pond. If I were to make one suggestion in terms of a space NOT to consider--it's close to trees. When the fall hits and those leaves come down, it's a royal PITA!

 

[gambitmac]

Nice! You've got a lot of potential for a pond. If I were to make one suggestion in terms of a space NOT to consider--it's close to trees. When the fall hits and those leaves come down, it's a royal PITA!

I second that, leaves are truely a PITA!!!

 

[koikeepr]

I would put it in an area where you can have a good view of it from your patio.

 

[jlcolvin]

Yeah I was pretty concerned about the trees in the back yard, I didn't want to be cleaning it a lot more than I could enjoy it. I was also concerned about putting in the bag yard because of our 3 dogs. I did get the wife on board with the idea though, so that is a major hurtle out of the way.

Here is another shot from the road

and here is the "unfinished" backyard and would I would have to clear out (the orange stake is the property line)

I really appreciate everyone's input and suggestions. It's really good to be able to get all this wonderful information before I start and hopefully avoid making a huge mistake somewhere.

So Thank You