Your Water Gardening Specialists!

Chuck's Latest Project...

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Day 1 - As Sasha (our designer) and I arrived at the jobsite, we discovered we would be installing a pond in a ditch in front of the factory. The purpose of this ditch was to serve as a reservoir every time there was a heavy rain fall, which happened 3 to 5 times a year. However, it was an eyesore and hard to maintain. The idea behind the pond was to retain 3' of water all the time, but had to be able to hold 5' of water when necessary. At the 3' depth level there was a run-off grate that would take the water away, once the ditches caught up with the excess water. To retain the 3' of water all season, we needed to line the pond with a liner to the 5' depth level. Day 2 & 3 - Excavation phase... It took approximately a day and a half to excavate the pond using a backhoe. We carved out the soil, forming it into shelves 3' below the run-off grate (mentioned above).
Day 4 & 5 - Rolling out the liner required a lot of man power; it took 8 people to pull out the 168' x 56' piece of liner which weighed approx. 1,500 lbs. It took us about 2 hours to manipulate the liner into place; after the liner was installed we started placing the field stone, starting at the bottom of the pond. Day 6 - Talk about Stress...The most stressful day on the jobsite was day 6, when the 4 to 5 ton boulders arrived. We had ordered 1 to 2 ton boulders; somehow the vendor misunderstood and delivered 4 to 5 ton boulders. The rocks were beautiful to look at, but unfortunately we had no machinery to move such large rock. This put us in quite a predicament, so we scrambled around and ended up renting a crane complete with an operator to handle the job. (Notice the syrofoam insulation used to protect the liner; we also used to make it easier to pull out the straps.)
Day 7 & 8 - It was time to put the enormous boulders in place; the process went smoother than I had anticipated. The crane operator was very experienced and that helped with the process. We used extra geotextile underlayment on top of the liner and carefully placed the rock on the styrofoam. While 2 of us were placing the large boulders, the others were filling in the gaps with fieldstone. By the end of Day 8, the last of the mega boulders were placed and a majority of the waterfall had been finished.
Day 9 - was solely dedicated to filling in the rest of the empty spaces between the large boulders.

Day 10 - Finally we get to start on the Bog Garden; this was the day we had all been waiting for. We had a new challenge at hand and that was creating a waterfall with the bog garden.So we installed the bog above the water level right next to the pond, it was basically just like building an upper pond. We used 1 Bog Snorkel and 3 Bog Centipedes, we found it very eary to install. We used a bog filter on this pond to replace the BIOFALL filter. Using BIOFALL filters just wouldn't have been cost efficient to filter this water; it would have taken multiple Grande BIOFALLS to do the job of the bog filter. For the intake we used a wet well (refer to earthen pond skimmer in our fall 2001 issue of Just Add Water) instead of a skimmer due to the water level fluctuations. A 9500 GPH Aquascape pump was perfect for the job. The following 4 pictures are of the filter, throughout the construction process.
Starting to lay rocks in the bog area to cover up the centipedes.
Centipede almost covered with the larger rocks.
More rock added to the bog area.

Bog area finished complete with plants.
Day 11 - Getting close to the end and time for some finishing touches, to cover the rest of the liner with 1" to 2" beach stone we rented a slinger. My first time using one of these machines and if you ask me, they should be called a stone flinger. That truck shot stone 50' at a very fast pace; at this point I was very happy that we covered the top of the liner with a layer of geotextile underlayment for extra protection.
Day 12 - One water truck, after another and 60,000 gallons later, we were full. The rest of the day we finished cleaning the work area.
Day 13 - We also installed 2 floating fountains for aeration purposes as well as extra visual enjoyment. Each fountain comes complete with a 100' electrical cord, which makes it very easy to install.

Yes, that is a kayak! As you can see, this was a huge project.

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Leaving Summer Behind...

If you have trees anywhere near your pond, the leaves that fall in the autumn will inevitably find their way to your pond. Ponds are leaf magnets, and even if your pond is equipped with a skimmer, you may find an excess of leaves sitting on the bottom.

To help your skimmer keep up with the falling leaves, cover your pond with pond netting. Protective pond netting covering your pond during the heavy part of the autumn leaf drop not only makes your fall season more enjoyable (less work), but it also helps make your spring cleanout easier.