Our first pond, stream, and waterfalls
Why and How
We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in March 2002. We've been pretty frugal throughout these 25 years and celebrated our other anniversaries very modestly. But for our 25th, we wanted something special. What could be special enough for this milestone? A trip to Hawaii, a week at a fancy resort? These might be fun, but when they're over, they're over. Plus, these ideas seemed rather frivolous to our practical souls.
When we thought about what gives us the most pleasure, we realized that it's being out in our yard and watching all the plant and animal life there. It's a real celebration of life. Besides being an interesting place to be, it's where we've spent a lot of creative effort over all these years - a constant theme running through our marriage. What would be more appropriate than adding something to our yard? What could be more special than a pond, stream and waterfall? This was something that could give us pleasure day after day all year around.
We got an estimate for an 11x11 foot pond and 20-foot stream - and thought about the expense. It was our anniversary, but ... Finally, we decided to purchase a kit and do it ourselves. The kit comes with an instruction book and a video. We've never watched a video as many times as we watched that video! The whole thing ended up costing about $3,000, but we also saved about $3,000.
We started digging our pond, with the (paid) help of our 17-year-old son. Unfortunately, we soon ran into a large bed of shale - and our son promptly requested a raise. The shale was a problem not only because it slowed down the digging, but also because it left very sharp edges. We decided to cover up these vertical edges with homemade mud made from sifted dirt, and we additionally covered them with old indoor-outdoor carpeting strips. Then we proceeded to lay the usual underlayment before putting the liner down.
The physical labor was only part of it, though. The practical design decisions - not just the aesthetics, but the functional ones - were difficult, never having done this before. The video and instruction book were helpful in building the pond, but were very sketchy on the stream and waterfall. As we continued, we were a little worried. What if we turned the water on and it all splashed out? What if the waterfalls didn't work?
Fortunately, on Labor Day morning, when we plugged it in ... it worked! It seemed like magic! Our yard is totally transformed! There's still a lot of landscaping and tidying up to do, but we already enjoy it immensely. The biggest downside - it's hard to stay indoors. We could just sit by the pond all day long!
The ecosystem
The Aquascape system is supposed to minimize the work of pond maintenance by creating an ecosystem. (Hmm… sounds like a good idea. When will we realize that healthy ecosystems will minimize the maintenance of the earth??)
The essential parts of our pond ecosystem are: plants, fish, the rocks and gravel, the BioFalls/Skimmer/pipe circulation system, and the addition of beneficial bacteria. Although one must accept the fact that our pond/stream/waterfall is definitely artificial, it's a pretty good imitation of a natural system. We're optimistic that there will be more environmental benefits than there are negatives.
One negative of course is that it requires electricity, and we're gravely concerned about global warming and the devastation that may bring. We have minimized our energy use in all sorts of ways in our home and in our transportation choices (we have a hybrid Prius and my husband bikes or buses to work) AND we are purchasing "green" wind energy from our utility company. We are also planning to replace our roof with solar shingles in the next few years if that's feasible. (NOTE: It turned out that it was not. That our roof doesn't face south wasn't a total barrier, but in combination with shade trees, it didn't seem like a viable project.)
The big plus, though, is that we're providing habitat for an expanded range of plants and animals. Not to be discounted is that it increases our knowledge about and deepens our connection to yet another aspect of the natural world - and strengthens our commitment to heal and defend the earth.
(Here are some photos)
Animals
Birds
One unexpected thing - the birds initially seemed to be extremely cautious about the stream. Even the usually-bold blue jays seemed to be afraid to fly over it!! It was pretty frustrating since I had designed the wide, shallow, pebbly stream with the birds in mind. I felt like shouting at them, "You've got wings - use them!" I guess life is dangerous if you're a bird - only the cautious survive. After a few weeks, though, they lost their caution. The robins and goldfinches especially seem to enjoy taking a drink and bathing in the stream. During our first migration season with the pond, we were amazed at how many migrants the falls and stream attracted - especially a variety of warblers.
Amphibians
What we were most looking forward to was having frogs in our pond. Although everything I read said that they'd surely find any body of water, they never arrived on their own. Eventually someone gave us a bunch of little green froglets they had rescued from their swimming pool. Although they say never to move grown frogs, only tadpoles, these were really rescued frogs since they all die once swimming pool owners add chlorine. Fortunately, they stayed, thrived, and even laid eggs! They survived the first winter in our iced-over pond, but the next year all the adults died, leaving only the tadpoles which had overwintered.
Besides really enjoying our frogs all summer, we feel a responsibility to help them overwinter. We'd also like to do this without electricity. This winter ('09) we're experimenting with putting a PVC pipe in the pond and checking it each morning to see if it's still open. If it isn't, I pour some warm water down the pipe so that there's an air hole. We'll see how that works this year. If they don't survive again, we'll need to figure out something else.
We'll also have to get some more frogs since I don't think they left any tadpoles this year. Which brings up another thing we learned. I think that adding our chlorinated tap water wasn't good for the frog and toad tadpoles. We had lots of tadpoles, but they all died. We're now using only water from our rain barrels to fill the pond when the water level goes down.
Insects
Besides frogs, one category of animal I'm most interested in is insects. We already are enjoying the damselflies and dragonflies. (I just recently learned that there was a difference between these - before I thought they were just different kinds of dragonflies.) I'm also really interested in other water insects such as water boatman. They're small, but fascinating.
Mosquitoes? They haven't been a problem. First, the water is circulating, and second, there are so many things that eat mosquitoes - birds, dragonflies, frogs, toads, etc. - that it just hasn't been a problem.
Fish
I initially didn't want fish, but after buying them (6-for-a-dollar feeder goldfish), I really enjoyed them. They even survived the winter with an iced-over pond. Eventually, though, we realized that they were eating the frog and toad eggs, as well as the dragonfly eggs I assume. The goldfish were also multiplying. I was wondering what I could possibly do (as a non-native fish, definitely NOT add them to local streams) and I couldn't bear to kill them. But nature took care of the problem. After one especially icy winter, we found that they had all died. What a relief! I haven't replaced them, and even though the Aquascape system says they're essential, we haven't found a problem without them.
Plants
It's been interesting becoming familiar with a whole new category of plants. When we camping in the Adirondacks in the midst of our pond building, we frequently went canoeing on Seventh Lake and took special note of the plants growing there. Some examples of what I have planted:
- Arrowhead "Duck Potato" Sagittaria latifolia
- Sweet Flag, Acorus
- Bog bean
- Bog arum
- Pickerel weed
- Marsh marigold
- Blue flag iris
I've tried to use only native plants, although it isn't easy to come by this information, and it's difficult to find a source of these native plants.
I transplanted my cardinal flower lobelias from my garden into the top shelf of the pond. So far, it seems to be doing well (i.e. it hasn't died and has started leafing out underwater). It can't be any worse than it did in this summer's heat and drought. UPDATE: they didn't last over the winter. I've since planted new ones - some in my bog and others in the two wet meadows I created. We planted three water lilies directly in the planting pockets (topsoil, kitty litter, and gravel).
Some invasives that are commonly sold
I was sold Parrot feather, but found that it isn't native to North America - but more importantly, is potentially invasive to waterways. Although my pond doesn't connect to a waterway, parrot feather will grow in soil as well and so it could eventually move out of my yard, so I removed it from the pond.
Although the Yellow Flag iris is attractive, it's not native (although I believe it's considered naturalized rather than a new introduction). In addition to the fact that some states are reporting that this plant has become a nuisance, my objection is that it looks too much like a garden plant. I prefer more "pond-y" looking plants like the bog bean or pickerel weed. I can have iris flowers in my regular garden if I want.
LESSON: Do your research first and don't assume that garden centers sell only desireable plants!
What about winter?
Our owner's manual recommends that you leave the waterfalls going all year. In fact, it says that winter can be the most beautiful time with icicles. But were they talking about Central New York winters? The pond pumps 2,000 gallons of water an hour. In a 1,000-gallon pond, the water goes through twice an hour, so it probably wouldn't totally freeze. We tried leaving it running the first winter, which was unrelentingly cold with no intermittent thaws, but we found it was a constant worry. Since we have a wide, shallow stream, it seemed to freeze very easily. We decided to bring the pump inside - sitting in a bucket of water - so we wouldn't have to worry about water being diverting by ice dams and the pump being damaged by insufficient water. There was so much snow that there wasn't much to see anyway. Now that we're more conscious of global warming and our energy use, we're just as happy not to be using energy all year anyway.
Last updated 01/29/2009