New Natural Pond adventure in Tempe, Arizona

[azlavender]

Hi Everyone,

I have been practicing permaculture in my home garden for the last two years. One of the latest addition to my garden is a DIY natural garden pond that my husband and I built together. We finished majority of the build in late September, 2015 and I have added a couple of waterlilies, oxygenating plants, adopted one goldfish (named him Big Red), purchased 4 little shubunkins, added a handful of fancy guppies and some mosquito fish. I think some snails hitch hiked from the place I got the water lettuce from.

Everything seems to be working nicely, water stays clear even though I am only using plants to filter the water. I built a small waterfall to add oxygen to the pond and we love the sound of running water, really relaxing.

I am looking forward to learn from everyone here and hope to eventually contribute back when I gain more experience and knowledge.

Here's a few photos of our pond build. Still some more work to be done to it, but we are pretty happy with it so far.

This is when we were digging and building the retaining wall for about 1/3 of the pond to be above ground. Total depth is 3ft.

Here's the photo of us putting down underlayment and liner.

Still working out the kinks of our bog filter and waterfall feature...

Here's the photos of us building the decking around the pond.

Almost done with decking here and building bench for the pond edging.

King of Siam water lily seems to approve of our pond, beautiful blooms!

 

[tbendl]

Wow what a cool backyard and pond. I am loving the multi-level. Was it like that when you bought the house? The pond looks wonderful as well!

 

[azlavender]

Wow what a cool backyard and pond. I am loving the multi-level. Was it like that when you bought the house? The pond looks wonderful as well!

Thank you tbendl!

We actually took out the huge dive in pool that was in the backyard, hired a crew to break everything up, haul the concrete out so we can build a sunken garden. That was a huge project.

1.5 years into living in the house after we bought it, we realized that a huge amount of money was going to the pool water and electricity. We only used it 5-7 days out of the whole year. Since I prefer using water for growing edible plants, we decided to take the whole thing out and plant an edible sunken garden oasis back there.


Here's the crew bringing in the big equipment to break the pool up.

We had them fill the hole up to only about half way so we can build retaining walls and planters in there.

Here's the built of the retaining wall and planters surrounding the sunken garden.

 

[sissy]

addy did the same with her AZ pool but turned it into a big pond .Now no pond and she and her hubby are down there working on selling the house .Nice pond and love that you had made shade to work in .Congrats on your home and now your new pond

 

[azlavender]

addy did the same with her AZ pool but turned it into a big pond .Now no pond and she and her hubby are down there working on selling the house .Nice pond and love that you had made shade to work in .Congrats on your home and now your new pond

Thank you sissy.

 

[tbendl]

Wow, I have never seen an unused pool space used this way. Very unique and cool. Well done!

 

[Tula]

Welcome! Beautiful pond and seating area

 

[azlavender]

Thank you Tula!

 

[Big Lou]

Awesome

 

[sissy]

have to ask what is that pretty wood in the last pic .

 

[azlavender]

have to ask what is that pretty wood in the last pic .

sissy, that wood is the untreated red wood from Lowe's. We use that for all of our planters that we build.

 

[azlavender]

Awesome

Thank you!

 

[addy1]

Beautiful job! Welcome to our group

 

[MitchM]

What a great replacement for a swimming pool.

Permaculture is a great method to manage a garden.
Please keep us updated on that.

 

[azlavender]

Beautiful job! Welcome to our group

Thank you!