Water Gardening: Introduction. , 1 by JayinMN

JayinMN wrote:
Since I made my first post last night I figure its time to introduce myself on here. I have been reading the forum for about a year now. My name is Jason, and live in Hibbing, MN which is zone 3. I bought an old farm house a few years ago with a clay bottom pond. I had no yard at that time and spent the first summer making a lawn around my house and not paying much attention to the pond. I went overboard with the lawn and now mow about 7 acres. The first year I moved here I threw a couple goldfish in the pond for mosquito control. I thought they died because I never saw them again until the pond almost dried up. We had a real dry summer that year. I found out my have dozen goldfish bred like rabbits and I had hundreds of them. I still take the 6 original fish in each winter and some babies over winter in the pond with no deicer. I am slowly working on making it a bit more attractive. I have been bring in tons of rock, literally, all collected by hand and cut back some of the cattails. With the clay its hard to keep the water clear, especially with two dogs that swim in it many times a day. I got electricity hooked up down their a few days ago so now I can starting playing with the idea of a water fall or stream into the pond. I am open to suggestions and ideas. I tried water lilies, but my dogs retrieve them out of the pond so that didn't work, However this year I tried water hyacinth and its growing like crazy and they have left it alone of the most part. The fish love it. This pond is actually quite deep about 6 feet in the spring after all the rains and then it comes down to about 4 feet at its deepest spot. Its is approximately 30 feet in diameter at its fullest.