How many ponders are out there ?? List your names - Update!

I'm a wanna-be ponder! My boyfriend and I are going to build a pond in the backyard but we are trying to get all the info we can before we jump in.

My 45 ft stream, waterfall, and pondless basin - holds about 500 gallons and sounds wonderful!!! Very easy to maintain.

stream

This was early in the year. The plants are huge around the stream and pond. Lots more planted too.

the waterfall

I have a hand dug 9000 gal pond. I also put in 2 more lotus ponds this year about 100 gallon each. My gardens are still a work in progress. I have had the pond about 3 years now and I love it. It took us from 7-4 until 10-4 to dig the pond. Yes, all the same year. I have about 16 Koi of various sizes & 4 goldfish.

Dax - Like you I tried to keep Koi in the bottom pond and the goldfish up above, didn't work. The goldfish swam down stream, the ones that didn't get hung up in the waterfall rocks anyway. That also won't keep their eggs from washing down stream.

I'll find some pics to post.
Peggy

I have had a small pond for about two years with plans to enlarge it some.
Karen

dylancgc....I'm adding my 3rd small pond, and hand digging all the way....Wonder what makes me do it again? After pond #2 my arms felt like rubber and my back felt like a truck hit me....
I guess I just love sitting on the deck watching the fish once I've finished !

Becareful with all that digging and rock lifting. Three ponds and putting in a stone retaining walls did me in. I had to have back surgery twice within a year. I thought I was invincible!

We all find out we are not invincible at some point.

I don't know that I ever want to undertake digging ours by hand again. The 2 small lotus ponds I dug but they aren't that big. I love my pond and one of these days I am going to be done with the gardens and can actually sit out by the pond and enjoy my pond and fish. Now whenever I sit down I think of something I should be doing and get up to do it. I have a new Lotus this year so now I will need a different pond next year for it. The work never ceases, does it.

I'm in a subdivision, so the houses are too close together on the sides to allow any equipment back to dig.....so I'm afraid everything I do is by hand. BUT, even so, this is definitely my last one! I'll stick to smaller holes from now on, to plant trees and bushes in! At least I have somewhere to dump the dirt this time, on my other project area where I need level land to put another patio.

Shihtzumom
Hi. Could you tell me where your pump /vault is is located? I see wire near the bog basin is it somewhere in there ? I have to disguise my piping leading from the pump and now I wonder if I have to keep it in the bog. How deep is the bog that you have. I think ours must be at least 5 or 6 feet --needed enough volume to support the stream and evaporation, etc. (a long story) but to make it shorter I have to hide the PVC pipe ..which would be made easier depending on where the pump has to live. ~Dorothy

I am almost ready to close on a house with a spring fed mud bottom pond. It already has white water l ilies, wild blue asters, wild black eyed susans,goldenrod, thistle, and perhaps a few other things I missed. It also has a thin perimerter of poison ivy.

This week I went down and planted quite a few LA and Japanese iris. These are things which I already have that I can add to the garden perimeter around the pond which must be about 20' in diameter or possibly more: Siberian iris, primrose, bearded iris, many daylilies, more La and Japanese iris, Royal fern, a purple hardy hibiscus, campanula lactifolia, azaleas, rhodendron, adenophora, sweet william, shastas, knock out red roses, and various columbines, bee balm and purple phystogia. I know all of these won't be perfect for a pond perimeter.

I am starting loads of plants through winter sowing too. Millers' crimson primrose, several types of ligularia, astilbe, trumpet lilies and asian lilies (from seed to bloom in 2009), and swamp gentian.

But I need to get more watery plants like horsetail reeds, cardinal flower,

I would like to add decorative rhubarb, pickerel weed, elephant ears, hostas of various kinds, iron weed, joe pye weed, etc.

I really don't plan to use all the above because I know it would look like a crazy quilt. Any suggestions?

The pond is inhabited by lots of frogs and supposedly goldfish. It is murky, and I haven't seen the fish.

I just built my pond this past summer, but I dont have a pump and filter yet. I discovered a lot of froggies in there and I am afraid to bother them. I will do the filter next spring. Then I will start on my pond plants and fishys too.

I am in the construction phase of a waterfall and a pond-less stream. I did the major moving of existing plants and the digging last week, including the huge hole for the vault. I thought I would find China. I have my supply of large field stones at the ready, having taken down a wall that we built years ago and moved those stones to the west side of our house where the stream is being built. I no longer needed that wall to anchor the east side garden as that garden had long since grown beyond that wall. Funny how that happens! I will order the 3 tons of 1" to 2" size gravel for delivery next week.

I pick up the pump (pro-line 4800) , a vault, water fall (Atlantic Water-filter falls 2500) and all the liners and various sealants, hose etc on Thursday from a nice garden center (Country Garden) in Hyannis. The two pond guys have been most helpful, but my real inspiration has been shihtzumom and Songsofjoy from DG. Thank you.

So I should go from dirt to rock and running water very soon after I return to the Island on Monday. I won't plant along it until spring and I will turn it off the pump and winterize it for the winter. But I should be able to hear the water from early spring until late fall. I will post pictures if it is worthy. Patti

Hi Patti
Good Luck with your pond. We have a pondless stream also. We really enjoy it alot --the sounds of the water over the falls and 'plopping' of the skittish frogs. We did have to double the size of the gravel bog after it was built -- although like you I thought it was huge to begin with. We had water loss and the pump kept shutting down whenever loss dropped the reservoir too low. (Every 3 weeks or so.) The stream is long going from one side of the front of the house to the other (we have a large flagstone bridging the stream so we can walk out of the house and over the stream). The stream is wide (2 feet - 3 feet in places) and is fairly deep as streams go. It seemed that the volume of water contained in the stream when it is running and flowing over the 3 falls caused too much evaporation, and the gravel bog although I think it originally was 6 feet deep and perhaps ten feet wide (guessing) wasn't enough of a reservoir to support the streams water needs (the bog was filled entirely with gravel so that reduced the volume of water it could hold.) So the bog went double its size and a little deeper and the bottom was filled with the large bore black plastic tubing and the top of the tubing was covered with a barrier cloth (for coverage) and then the cloth was topped with river rock. By placing the tubing in the bog (this was like a drip tubing so water actually flows through it) it allowed more volume for water than filling the bog entirely with gravel. Anyway, I thought I'd tell you this because the landscaper who has been doing this for many many years (I looked at a great many of his installations) spent a great deal of time looking for a leak..relined the entire system once...etc. etc. before he consulted others in the business who told him it was likely the reservoir size and the stream size. It was very costly for him. In addition to the bog being dug wider/deeper we put more large sized stone along the stream sides (effectively 'narrowing' the stream) to take up space that water would normally have to fill. This diverted more water the reservoir and less to the stream. I'm sure you have got it all figured out already but I figured it can't hurt to tell you about my situation just in case. Enjoy your stream ! (send photos) Dorothy

Dorothy, I am not having a gravel bog but rather a purchased plastic vault that will sit in a hole that will be surrounded by gravel and topped with a large stone for access. At least that is what I think! Here is their song and dance.

Hi Patti
I have the pump vault but my vault didn't come with a reinforced top as yours did. Instead we cover it with a large flagstone. I lift the flagstone when I need pump access to see how much water is above the pump (the level) because to run, the pump needs to be completely submerged. In the pump vault sits the submersible pump (below grade). The vault containing the pump sits in a huge hole (very wide and deep). That hole is filled with gravel with a layer of river rock on top (for looks) The river rock appears dry on the top of the stone, but midway towards the bottom, the river rock is sitting in 'shallow' water (the bog). Plants can grow in this. Water flows from the top of the stream down the length of the stream and over the waterfalls....into the big hole that the pump vault sits in. The pump action pulls water from the hole (the reservoir) into the vault (the vault is constructed so that it can filter small stone/debris) as water is being pulled by the pump. So to follow the flow: The water flows down the stream over the waterfalls >>water fills the hole>>>the pump pulls the water from the hole into the vault and recirculates it back up to the top of the stream. So the water goes round and round ;0 ) We opted not to have the auto fill valve (as the water evaporates...the valve is triggered and allows water to fill from your house or well) because we are having a really significant drought and did not want to overtax the well. So we fill the stream as needed. BEFORE we enlarged the bog (the hole) we had to fill it every three weeks or the pump would shut down as the water level in the bog/hole fell... since making it bigger we had to top it off once (after 2.5 months). That is our experience thus far because as I said it has not rained at all and it has been a hot summer. I expect we will be filling less as it rains more and the temp cools. What I was saying in my previous post is that the hole was undersized (but it looked huge when it was dug) for the 1. length of the stream...2. width/depth of the sidewalls of the stream and 3. three waterfalls (lots of evaporation at the waterfalls). I was suggesting that you seek information to make sure your reservoir (bog/hole) is big enough to support your stream. If not you will be filling it more than you will like. It's better to size it correctly now - much harder later!

This message was edited Oct 22, 2007 8:16 PM

missingrosie, Great information. I have so much to learn. Digging that hole was an effort for this old gal. So I will check about the size, I have room for as large a hole as needed, just need the energy to dig it. It sounds like I should enlarge it before I do another thing. Thanks, Patti

>>>It sounds like I should enlarge it before I do another thing. Thanks, Patti

I am getting close to having most of the work done on my pond less stream. It sounds good, but looks a little bare, but I am going to plant a huge number of spring bulbs around it next week which will give me hope of good things to come. The whole area around the new stream that we call " The Dell" had large plantings of astilbe, hosta, iris, etc that I hope will come back after all my stomping about on them for the last couple of weeks. I need to install underwater lighting and foam the falls, plus lots of rock adjustments. Many birds have been loving it too. Patti

Hi Patti
It is beautiful!! You sure did a great job. Enjoy! I hope your plants come back, but if not --you will fill the area in .You won't be able to help it! I just looked at my last post of Oct 22nd... I wrote it and I sent it and didn't look at it afterwards. . But, none of it 'stuck!' Sometimes that happens but I am not sure why. A little too late now to correct it, but after I cut and pasted your comment, I said ..."no, don't enlarge it, or change the design based on my experiences, just ask a landscape nursery or other expert for some advice just to be sure your reservoir is large enough. It is not fun to go back to correct it if it is undersized. Anyway, I am sure it will turn out ok. It sure looks great.

My babies at feeding time (they're very much like Pavlov's Dogs when they see me walk on the deck!)

bump for new ponders!!

Great inspiration! I love looking at pond pics! We just finished redoing our tiny "waterfall," and are enjoying it immensely.

Update, some 2011 shots. Our endless stream still making us smile. No pond yet, but we have expanded the area just beyond the end of the stream and there is a great spot now for one. Patti

I love the way you posted the pictures. i do not have the talent to post like that!! Belle

bellieg, sure you do. I use a free program from Google that has a collage feature which is way easy to use with any photos. It is just a tad confusing when first getting started, but than it is simple. So if you download photos onto your computer, you can do all kinds of collages as there are many styles to chose from. I learned about Picasa from seeing someone Else's on DG and now I use the program for all my photo files and editing too, not just for collages. I also download albums too. Here is an album about the whole process of building the stream. I also wrote an article for the local paper about building it. And they paid me! Patti

https://picasaweb.google.com/pmc.ack/ALBUMENDLESSSTREAMCONSTRUCTION?authkey=Gv1sRgCOvYxvLioeL4VQ&feat=directlink

Here is the link to get the free download for Picasa

http://picasa.google.com/

I'm not a ponder, but a container gardener... I have about 600 gallons total. I grow mostly tropical water lilies. After seeing what picasa could do, I figured I'd try it out. Here's the result of some of my random photos.

dahos77, nice collection and shots. Picasa is a good tool, but you gotta have the photo's and you certainly do. Thanks for sharing. Patti

Not a problem. I'll try and search through my archives and see if I can come up with a better one. I have a lot of photos and a lot of water lilies :P

Hi! I'm a ponder with a 2250 gallon koi pond in which I raise my koi. I have another small 100 gallon plastic preform pond for a lotus plant, then I have another lotus bog pond about 300~400 gallons! So I have three ponds total. I don't grow my lotus with my koi. Only my water lillys. They are in floating baskets and my koi usually do not bother them. I have two lotus growing in the preform plastic pond and about 17 lotus growing in my bog. So yes I'm definately a ponder!h

Hi. i have a 2250 gallon koi pond. i also have two other smaller ponds dedicated to plants. yes im a ponder! i live in california in zone 9a. a very warm desert area. i love raising my koi and love being a ponder!

bump for a friend

Updated endless stream. This spring we dug out the falls as there was a slow leak in the coupling from it to the hose. We decided that the original falls was made out of a very flimsy weight of plastic compared with newer ones so we replaced it. DH had to dig up the whole hose to make sure it was not leaking too. But is was a relatively simple project as I mostly just pointed and approved where DH put the stones. Then I replanted it and it has not leaked any since we did the work. We love it, the birds love it as do our dogs. No pond yet. Patti

I LOVE seeing everyone's pictures!

It's taken me about 3 hrs. to make it through all these posts. Couldn't help but notice no 2 ponds are alike. What a fabulous variety. Glad I'm not alone at being a ponding nut.
There is a seperate thread labeled new pond in progress and it has pics. of latest pond we dug 1 year ago July. Also I think some of my old pond. Koi live in both of them.

Here in Fl. they are a challenge to keep algae free but I still enjoy them and the fish.

Happy ponding to all
Bonnie of BonnieGardens

Hi! I am new here!

Here's an older photo of my pond when we first bought our house. I lost a lot of more recent photos due to a technology problem but I will be sure to take a lot more photos this year. We have come so far with cleaning up the pond and went through some real struggles figuring out filtration and the water fall. Here is a blog post in which I talk about some of the work we have done...

http://gildedorchid.com/water-gardening/a-short-history-of-my-pond/

oops! It didn't atttach the image. Let's try again!

Very nice. Looking forward to your photos. I had to restart my IPAD and neglected to back up. All was lost too.😪. You can see the winter has been hard on the stream and landscape. The ice storm(s) made a mess and no time for the water feature. I have managed to clean up the water some.


This message was edited Apr 7, 2014 7:36 PM