My Pond

One aspect of my garden I haven’t written about is my pond. This is the 6th pond I have built and I’ve learned from every single one. A pond adds such a peaceful aspect to your garden. If you have a waterfall, the sound of running water is so peaceful. Relaxing next to your pond is an ideal spot to read a book.

Funny how I got started with this hobby. About 15 years ago, I got an assignment to photograph a magazine article about a man who built ponds as a hobby. This particular man had cut a hole in his driveway and built a pond in it. I had to meet this guy, how strange was that? Well, we became fast friends at our first meeting and we’re still friends to this day. He still has the pond in the driveway along with 3 other ponds in his yard. He actually put a new door into his garage on the alley side so he could put his car in the garage.

Bob, my pond friend, had started a pond club and invited me and my husband to a meeting. Well, I thought, I’ll get a chance to meet others who have built ponds. I was a big time gardener but had never thought about a water garden. I thought it was pretty neat, some of these folks built some pretty elaborate ponds. Everyone kept asking when we were going to build a pond. They all said everyone built their first pond too small. I could fix that. One night about 8 PM, I laid the hose on the lawn in a shape I later realized looked like a molar. We started digging. And digging, and digging. We put out lights and the neighbors came over to help dig. It was like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. Eventually we ended up with a 1900-gallon pond. I timed how long it took to fill a 5-gallon pail, and then extrapolated the amount of time it took to fill the pail. The first time around I bought some kind of plastic liner that didn’t hold up worth a damn. It only lasted about a year. What a chore to move all the rocks and get a rubber liner installed. It’s called Pond Gard and its made by Firestone. All the good advice from my new friends at the pond club was a big help. Once a month we shared experiences and problems.

One thing led to another and I built another pond in my own yard. Then other people wanted me to build a pond for them. Never let it be said that ignorance stopped me. I was a problem solver and I could do anything. I built 3 more ponds of various sizes. So we eventually moved to Nevada and then the fun began. We have really rocky soil here and a pick is our favorite garden tool. My husband started digging with a pick and shovel. We sifted all the rocks out of the soil he dug. There were lots of rocks and since there was no house next door, we threw them over the wall. It took him 3 months of picking and sifting to dig a 6-foot by 12-foot hole that was 44 inches deep. He said it was his grave. Actually, we later learned about electric jackhammers and could have done this in a day with a couple of laborers. So now we had this huge hole, and it stayed empty for about 4 years until we managed to get all our sons here at one time. We lined the hole with carpet padding. Remember all the rocks, I was afraid it would puncture the liner. We bought a piece of EPDM, the Pond Gard, and it was too heavy for us to handle. It took all 5 of us to handle this monster-sized piece of rubber.

Finally, we situated it in the hole, folded it so the liner was as flat as possible, and put some water in it. But even I admitted this was not working. I finally broke down and hired Chris, a pond builder, (that's him in the white T-shirt) and he helped us finish the project. We bought river rock, large smooth rocks and lined the entire pond. Chris installed a skimmer box and a waterfall box. We added water and turned on the pump. The first pump I bought only pumped 900 gallons an hour and we didn’t get much sound from the waterfall. I would fix that by buying a 2300 hundred gallon an hour pump. Great sound from that puppy. It took a 2-inch line to send the water to the top of the waterfall. I bought plants, I bought gold fish and filled it with water. Finally we had a pond.

I have 3 water lilies, miniature cattails, some black taro and parrots feather. The water lilies are Attraction (a red), Gonnere (a gorgeous double white) and Charlene Strawn (a yellow). I used a pallet of petrified wood I found at a supply yard for the edge stones. The dozen feeder fish have grown multiple generations of babies. I never feed the fish, they spawn until they reach the limit of their food supply. You create a biosystem in your pond, just like nature creates. It's so hot here that algae really thrives. When your water gets enough cover from the leaves of the lilies, the algae mostly disappears. Algae doesn’t grow in the shade. I was disappointed to find out it is too hot here to grow lotus. I grew it in Indiana and loved it. I never got many flowers a year from it but when it did bloom, it was spectacular. Every time we try to tweak Mother Nature, it’s a challenge to see if it works. I’ve become very pragmatic, if a plant does well, it stays. If something doesn’t thrive, it’s out of here. I am a crazed plant collector but I don’t have an emotional attachment to all of the plants in the yard, just 99 and 44/100th % of them. The last photo is how the pond looks today. You can see how big the blue Mexican fan palms have grown. It's our little oasis in the desert.