The Pond Saga

It came to me, in one of those quiet moments when all things seem possible and time stretches before you like a never ending country road, that I needed a pond. The thought settled in my mind like a frog burrowing under leaf litter for a long cold spell and I couldn't shake it. At first I imagined a little bucket of a pond, just big enough for a tiny waterlily and a goldfish or two, but then I took to buying pond magazines and researching pumps and biological filtration systems. I checked books and videos out of the library. I started taking yard measurements. I began to visit nurseries with ponds on display. For a full year, I analyzed the merits and demerits of having a pond in the backyard. This was no mean feat for someone as impulsive as myself. Finally, in the early spring, I ordered an Aquascape system from a supplier over the internet. It was expensive, but I wanted the skimmer system that would suck the leaves off the top. Mostly I was sold on the system because the nursery I visited used that system and after flipping through the manual, I thought I could figure out how to install it myself.
So suddenly my little pond in a bucket became a 19 x 11 pond with a two level waterfall and a maximum depth of 36 inches. There was no way I could dig a hole that big so I recruited two of my students at $10 an hour to dig the hole. This is a photo of two of my students in the early stages of digging the pond. It took them a full 8 hours on a Saturday. We took them out to eat at an Italian restaurant afterwards and gave them a bonus for all their hard work. And it was some serious hard work. I kept running around with a carpenter's level to make sure we were in the neighborhood of level.
We used the dirt from the dig to build up low spots in the yard and to build up the edges of the pond so that it was level since there is a slight slope in the backyard. We also used some of the soil to build up the area for the waterfall. The next day it rained like crazy and filled the pond halfway up with water. I waited a week and it wouldn't drain. This did not bode well. In my rambling research I had come across horror stories of ponds built in areas that did not drain well, ponds that had caved in or the liner had ballooned up in the center of the pond. However, since there was already a huge hole in the center of my backyard, I had no choice but to blithely sally forth.
I went to Home Depot and bought a $60 sump pump and hooked it up to a spare waterhose to empty the pond. It took hours, but finally, the pond was drained. After it dried out for a couple of days, I had my students come back over, and we put down the underlayment and then the liner.
I had ordered an ungodly amount of rocks, from small pebbles to boulders, to be used to cover the liner. While I hooked up the skimmer and water fall, I had my two helpers haul the large rocks from the front yard to the edge of the pond. They used both a dolly and a construction grade wheelbarrow. We ran the pipe along the back of the pond to connect the skimmer to the falls. It took most of the day, but we placed the largest stones. The next day, I had two of my girl students, who were in need of funds, come over and help me put in the gravel and smaller stones. My dog thought the bottom of the pond was a nice place for a nap. I think it looks like a Viking burial ritual with her lying there.
Once the stones were in place, I turned on the water hose and filled the pond. It holds about 3000 gallons. The deepest part is 36 inches and is a spot for the fish to go in really cold winters or to hide from predators. Most of the pond is 24 inches, but a shelf runs around 3/4 of the pond that is only about 12 inches deep. It is a nice plant shelf and the kids like to sit on the edge and put their feet in here.
The most fun was building the waterfall. I wanted the water to spill over into a small pool and then flow into the pond. When I'd visited other ponds, that design intrigued me. I'm not quite sure why, but that small collecting pool seemed like a whole other world to me. Or maybe it's just the idea of getting two waterfalls for the price of one. Whatever the reason, I'm very glad I designed it this way. There is more potential for leaks in this design than if I had just done a straight drop into the pond, but it adds a little mystery that I like.
This is the finished pond before the landscaping is put in. It took the rest of the summer to fine tune the rock placement around the edges and to figure out what should be planted where.
This is a view of the waterfall from behind the waterfall. I rarely see this vantage point because I designed the falls to be viewed from the deck on the back of the house.
The sunlight and shadow that plays on the water is really very hypnotizing in the early morning or late afternoon. I planted a green Japanese maple that I hope will eventually grow up and over the falls. Hostas siberian cypress,and azaleas flank the edges. Creeping jenny is the lime green vine that has grown like crazy in the crevices. I have tried to plant greenery along the edges to soften the rocks. This area gets a good deal of shade so it has been tough finding plants that do well and look lush.
On the side of the pond closest to the deck, I have tried to keep plantings to a miniumum so it is easy to walk right up to the pond and see the fish. Originally, I didn't want fish. It seemed like a lot of effort and I didn't want to get attached and then have them die. But I did want frogs. They were one of my prime reasons for wanting a pond. I wanted frogs that would sing in the spring. Frogs that would float in the water with their endearing little eyes poking just above the water. So I ended up having to build a frog pond.
I dug it and built up the sides with excess dirt. Then I put in a liner and bought a little aerator pump. I didn't want it connected to the main pond because I wanted to grow plants in there (like duckweed) that the skimmer would have sucked out of the big pond. Then I had my students come and use some thin stones to stack up a wall, leaving an opening so any frogs who took a notion could come in and set up housekeeping. The first year, no frogs. But the second year, I was out in the morning poking around and a tiny little frog was sitting on a rock that jutted out of the frog pond. She stayed all summer and this is what she looked like this August. Even though she often hung out in the frog pond, she also liked to explore the big pond and sit on the lilypads. She also liked to hang out in the skimmer and scare the bejesus out of me when I lifted the cover to check the basket. I think she is a green frog (Rana clamitans), according to my National Audubon Society Field Guide to New England. It says the male frogs have yellow throats, so I'm guessing it is a she. I am so hoping for frog song and tadpoles next spring.