Getting closer....

[sissy]

thats a nice sign of love and luck koiguy lol.

 

[JenH]

Finally have the internet again!! Good grief! I did have to threaten to take my business elsewhere, and I did get a $10 credit to my bill. But it wasn't until I threatened to go to comcast that they got someone out here!!

 

[HARO]

The squeeky wheel gets the grease!
John

 

[JenH]

So back to ponding.....My hubby and I got the new skimmer installed and my magnolia tree planted. Also got most of the edging and mulch down. Apparently one pickup full of mulch wasn't enough though. Still have to get all my perennials planted, but I am waited a little longer holding out for some warmer nights before I do. But here is another picture of where we are so far. Just getting some of the mulch in made it look so much better!

My fish seem pretty unhappy with our weather. Apparently they are as over this wind and cold as I am. They've been hiding in their little cave since yesterday. I went out a few minutes ago and some of them started to come out of hiding and one goldfish jumped straight up out of the water! Guess they're tired of the "tidal waves" Water temps before were probably around 70, now they're around 50.

 

[CountryEscape]

That looks outstanding, Jen! Good luck with the Magnolia tree! My cousin had one, moved across the road, bought 2 more, one at a time, both of them died. He said once you get them past the first winter, they are good to go! Guess last winter would have been a good one to get them through!
I love how you elevated your bog, and have the waterfall coming off of that. How neat! Wish I had thought of that. LOL Super good idea for certain. I see my ponds and think of all the ways I could have done things differently and better, but cost effective I had to go the route I did. Your border rocks and bolders look really good, too. Your fish are like mine, they are hungry, but not supposed to get food yet because the temps dropped again. I'm wondering if feeding them earlier was a bad thing, even though I didn't feed too much or too often. Hoping all will be fine. Thanks for the pic, and can't wait to see more with your new plants in place and so forth! Doesn't the mulch just seem to go on and on, and then never enough. LOL

 

[addy1]

That is looking great, good job

 

[j.w]

Looks very nice and somebody is hiding behind your tree...........hope it's not a burglar ,lol!

Glad you got your internet back too!

 

[pondlover]

Looks great Jen! It's amazing how much adding the mulch really gives it a more finished look. :razz:

 

[JenH]

Thanks guys! I really hope my magnolia doesn't die! The one I have back here is a smaller cultivar of a saucer magnolia. It's called "Ann" It will be more shrub shaped and will only get 8' x 8' I had planned to get the full saucer magnolia tree for my front yard this year as well, but the pond has cost too much to redo, so hopefully next year. It is by far my favorite flowing tree though, we have them all over Fort Wayne, and every year just seeing them bloom brings me out of the crappy winter blues.

I know what you mean about there always being something you wish you had done differently or wish you could have done. The way I designed this was in part to keep it from being to expensive, and also to keep the digging and work to a minimum for my husband. He did all the digging by hand and it's a tough job with all this clay. He's a garbage truck driver, and doesn't get real thrilled with me when I find a bunch of hard work for him to do around the house too! LOL. At least I'm lucky though that he'll do it! I would have loved to have been able to make it bigger, but size was based on liner expense. I also would have loved to be able to incorporate some sort of footbridge in the design. Who knows maybe someday if we ever expand. And now in hindsight I would have dug down the edge where the rocks are so that my water level could have come up all the way to the rocks completely hiding the liner. I didn't do that though, because I was worried about controlling rain runoff.

Nighttime lows are supposed to be coming up soon and I think as soon as they are staying out of the 30's and this wind gives us a break I will go ahead and plant my perennials. get the rest of the mulch and put my concrete bench back! I can barely stand having to wait on the weather! I'm so excited to get it finished and patience is not one of my virtues!

 

[CountryEscape]

Jen, I agree about hiding the edge of the pond. BUT, what I did this time, was to put the water level just above the ground level, then I dug the ground level where it was a little higher (since my yard had some fall from the top to the bottom end of the goldfish pond) and made it so that all the way around, I have a rock ledge in the water. THEN, I built it up after that rock. I could have done it free with dirt, and bought the rocks to stack up, but didn't think of that! I bought the landscape stones for the wall. These are the things that I sit back and say, "Darn, I should have done it this way or that way", but it's ok, I still love it!
And, I dug both of my ponds by hand, too, but I loved the hard work. I had a tractor and large scoop to carry the dirt away. Digging mine was easy, not so heavy of clay as some have to deal with, but hauling it away in a wheelbarrow would have been a back breaker, so very thankful for my tractor and loader. That made short work of the hard part. I could dig and throw dirt all day, unless it's muddy clay. Then I stopped until it dried out.

 

[JenH]

I love being able to sit back and say "Yep we built this" It makes it even more special then saying, "Oh yeah, so and so installed it" So it has definitely been worth it. And despite the digging my husband is a lot happier with this version then our original little preforms. We had a friend drop a big trailer for us to haul away the dirt but we still had to shovel it onto the trailer. When I say we, I mean he. I'm pretty much useless with a shovel in this hard heavy clay. But I did a lot of the other stuff while he was at work here and there. Placing the liner, laying the rocks, building the waterfall, planting, etc.

 

[CountryEscape]

Jan, you were the brain, he was the brawn! Haha, that's allowed! I'm by myself, so I had to be the "everything" person. It's great to have someone to share it all with. I'm sure you both really enjoy sitting back and admiring your hard work! The digging might be hard, but moving those rocks around, that's harder for me to do! So, you did your part, that's for sure.

 

[sissy]

Yep feel you ce as I was alone doing mine also and it can be hard to try and figure how I can do this or do that by myself ..Takes more thought when you are doing it by yourself .You have to stop and think about ,how am i going to do this without killing myself .I would have loved to redo the pond but don't want to go through that again .

 

[j.w]

Yep my heavy rock lifter man brought me two big rocks that I found while driving and I tried so hard to lift them and they wouldn't budge. He surprised me yesterday and brought them both home for me! He knows how to make me happy! Funny how exited we get over things for our ponds as simple as a rock,lol!

 

[sissy]

I take a hand truck and slide the rock onto the hand truck and have to cheap ramps i bought at an auction and that makes it easier to get them into the back of the truck