Our idea is to put much planning into the pond before we break ground. The one thing we are considering now has to do with a bog area. What we have in mind is not really a bog filter, just an area where we can plant marginal and emergent plants. I have drawn a diagram in MS word that I hope will post here to help explain the situation. OK... got the pic up. Everything above and left of the purple line is a smaller somewhat to scale version of both ponds and the stream. The lower pond will be approximately 7' X 15' without the bog area. The question concerns letting the lower pond just flood the bog area, or should it have some water circulating through it. It would be easy enough to T-off of the return line to get water circulatling through the bog. I would put a valve on it to control the flow so most of the water will circulate throught the upper pond and stream. We are open to any and all comments and suggestions. Thanks... Tom
This message was edited May 10, 2005 2:13 PM
This message was edited May 10, 2005 2:37 PM
Design help for central Texas pond/garden
OK... here is the diagram
That is similar to our pond layout. Our pump is in the bottom of the skimmer box at the farthest edge of the pond. It is an Aquascape system. This allows us to clean out the filter out in the skimmer box and do all other maintenance from one place. There is a second biological filter in the return flow waterfall, by using a bag of Lava rocks in the bottom where the intake flow comes in. We have only cleaned this one time, but that was unrelated to daily issues.
Where do you have filtration systems in place?
The layout looks nice. Have you considered a larger waterfall at the bottom pond, or will the stream inlet be large enough to make a "splash"?
I'd love to see the progress! Keep us updated! We'll be building another pond at our next place in a few years.
mel
silverfluter Looks like a great plan. Do keep us up to date. I have a little bog area near my pond. Just has a sort of seepage water, from a duck water feature. It is just a depression lined with left over pond liner, about 8 x 8 feet. Crowded now as many of the plants spread slowly. Good Luck and do have a good safe trip. DonnaS
TxMel, the filter will be part on the inlet of the pump. It will be a PVC pipe, perforated and covered with a filter medium. Thats what we have in the upper pond right now and seems to work great. When I took it off for cleaning, there were lots of critters living on the bottom side where it was protected against the bottom of the pond. There is also somewhat of a bog filter where the return water empties in the upper pond. Pics are posted in Pixie's thread, maybe you have seen them. Let us hear from you about Friday..... Tom
Hi Tom,
Great design! It seems to me that you'd want to be able to control the flow of water through the bog filter. My understanding is that water should move very slowly through this area to give the plants time to pick up the nutrients and give any sediment time to settle. If you don't have a valve to control the flow it will move as fast as your pump pulls water. Since you likely have a good sized pump, this will probably be too fast. As an example, you know I put a Y connector with ball valve on my water line just before the waterfall. When we started the waterfall the first time, the ball valve was wide open. The water filled the bog area very quickly and splashed over the wall. This was way too fast so we closed the valve about halfway. Now the water definitely moves, but it creeps over the wall instead of crashing over the wall. Much better for our purposes.
Also, I'm wondering what you will be using as a substrate in the bog. I found a lot of information on Google doing a search using the words 'skippy filter' and 'veggie filter'.
Hmmmm.... sounds like something to consider for sure. They told us at the pond place that the filter the put on the pump is adequate for the amount of water it pumps, but it seems you maybe can't have too much filtration. Several options come to mind... have to mash em around for a bit and see how they shape up... stay Tuned... Tom
Yes, I figure more filtration is always better, especially with fish in the pond! Technically, my waterfall filter will easily handle my pond, but, as my burgeoning pond design shows, my philosophy in gardening has been 'more is better'! Not always true, but it's usually where I start!
Safe trip to you!
Tom, I sent you a davemail, so look in your box for my directions. Friday looks good. Guess I won't clean out the lilies until after your visit, as that would stir up a mess!
Looking forward to it. I'll drag out the construction pictures for you, too!
Melanie
I had a wonderful visit with Silverfluter today (DH and DW). They are a lovely couple. Thanks so much for stopping by on your way!
Tom, here is that link to the pond tour from the Metroplex area from earlier....
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/489705/
I think you have a pretty good grasp on what you need, but this may give you some design inspiration for waterfalls, streams or shapes....
My hubby wanted me to reiterate one point. One thing that he would do differently, is make the dropoff sides from the outer shelf area of the pond go STRAIGHT down... Not sloping to the bottom, lined with rocks. This eliminates the slipping problems, and makes that edge more invisible. NO SLOPE he says! He would also make the shelf a little wider, and stand rocks up around the edge, with the water level coming to the middle of the rocks... then have the edge rocks around the pond edge, that I showed you!
I think that Pixy has standing rocks around her edge, then the flat ones will lay on the edge, and hang over somewhat....
I hope that makes sense.
Hope that you have a safe trip, and find your nursery in Argyle just fine!
Mel
It was a very nice visit indeed... your garden/pond is very enchanting!!! It took a while to digest everything we saw. I think we came up with a few questions... will address them later. The plants you gave DW made the trip in great shape. We found Argyle ok, but nobody there... just lots of bloomed out irises. We stopped by a few other places on the return trip and had about the same luck. Then we finally made it to Weston Gardens. DW spent about 1 1/2 hours there.
We had an addition to our pond when we got back... about a million tadpoles hatched out. I hope the fish harvest a few of them. More later... and thanks again for your wonderful hospitality... Tom
Hi Tom,
How's the design coming? Mel's right, I do have rocks lining the edges of my shelf. I put them in to keep plants from falling off, but I mortared them on and if I had it to do over again, I'd likely use the waterfall foam. The mortar is supposed to stick to the liner, but whoever said this didn't have my mortar or my liner! The rocks are easy to push off, and if a racoon was determined, he could do it!
I think we have decided to go without a shelf, just use blocks under the merginals. We are too close to the edge of town. No telling what critters we would have, so no shelf.
We were reading something interesting the other day about beginning the construction of the pond. The book described digging a trench around the outline of the pond and filling it with cement. This was for support of the edge rocks if they would be stood on later. It makes sense, but I wonder if all that labor would be worth it? Is it really necessary?
Hi Tom,
No shelf seems to make sense in your case. Regarding the cement, my pond has cement all the way around because of the instability of the soil around here. I didn't plan it that way, but as we dug it was apparent that the side needed to be stabilized. It was a ton of work, but mostly because I hadn't planned in advance to do it. I think if I had known in advance that I would be pouring cement, it would have been a lot easier. In my case it is a necessity. Standing on the edges of those walls would have collapsed them in a moment.
A bit of a disappointment, this AM I went out and the pond level had dropped 2 inches overnight. Somewhere there is a leak, likely where the water is going over the wall, or where it is dropping into the main pond from the stream. ARRGGH!
I hope you get it figured out soon... I know that must be frustrating. As far as our soil here... we have lots of clay. It seems like it might hold up without cement under it, then then again, we have one of those concrete pillar type birdbaths in the yard where the pond is going to be. You could call it the leaning bird bath of Pizza, even after trying it in several places... it still leans sooner or later. So now I am "leaning" towards doing the concreet footing around the pond(no pun intended)!!
Yes, I hear you! And don't forget, we have lots of clay here, too! I think the difference for us is that we have tons of water, so that keeps the soil fairly wet except in the summer. Wet clay just slides. It seems like each year during the heavy rains someone up here loses their house because it was built on the edge of a drop off, like where people carved out the side of a hill to put in a road. The rains saturate the soil, and good bye house! The soil just collapses. sometimes I think the builders around here will never learn, and the buyers as well. You couldn't pay me to buy a house around here on the edge of anything high up.
Hi you two,
I was just reading your discussion on the merits of concrete at the edges, and I can tell you that we decided to concrete the whole thing (stream and pond) for a couple of reasons. Mainly due to our kids and our dogs. No matter what I tell them, they like to walk on top of and jump over the creek, stand on the pond edge, etc., and I didn't want to stress about having to go out there all the time to police the area or check for leaks around the edges. They can play in the water if they want, and the dogs can wade in and take a drink. Unfortunately, all of the stones that I mortared to the steeper sides have now fallen in, and I am just growing things over those areas. My pond plants are just anchored with rocks and gravel - no shelf.
We also have a vinyl liner under the concrete, and the only leak so far was the one out of the back of the top spillway. Later this summer, I am going to drain the pond to remove some of the larger rocks from the bottom and change the lightbulb in the fixture down there. Lord knows what else I will find at the bottom!
Galega... good comments... thanks for th info!!
Yes, Kids and dogs. Mostly dogs around here as the kids are old enough. This is why I included the beach area with lots of rocks to protect the liner. I thought about doing the whole darn thing in concrete to protect the liner but I just didn't have the energy for it! I figured the dogs would be going into the pond to at least drink whether I wanted them to or not. Might as well make it easy for them and protect the liner at the same time.
My dogs have a special knack for climbing right over my canna.Grrrrr!
I love the look of a pond with a beach area. It's so fun to watch how the birds gather there and have a little party. When we decided to do a beach, I had fun throwing the 2" drain rock around and filled in with pea gravel and sand until I liked the look of it. It covers the ugly black concrete, and the birds seem to like it.
You know, I'm starting to wish more and more that I'd covered the whole darn liner with concrete. Yesterday I was pretty tired and, since I don't know when to stop and sit down, I lost my balance and had a very close call with falling into the pond. Here I was whooping and seesawing back and forth, grabbing at anything I could get my hands on (leaves of potted water plants, birdhouses, you name it) with DH watching openmouthed with horror from his beach chair. I must have looked pretty funny. I finally landed with one foot on the plant shelf and my hands braced against the stone 'bridge'. As DH came running to help me extricate myself all I could think was : OH LORD! I HOPE I DIDN'T DAMAGE THE LINER!
Now isn't this pathetic? Getting into the pond of my own free will I don't mind a bit. But falling into it is another story since the edges are concrete and the shelf is lined with rocks. I'm a bit attached to the idea of my head staying in one piece and functioning properly. But was I worried about this? No. My main concern: the liner!
Hope you're taking notes, Tom!
Then.... aren't we just building a swimming pool then...?
ok.... another interim project.... we dug out the Nandinas(damndinas) in front of the porch. We dug pretty deep in order to get most of the roots. We got all, well... almost all, the roots out and I looked at the work... "Say... we have a pretty nice hole here... why not fill it with water instead of more dirt for a flowerbed???" DW said I been in the sun too long!! Anyways... the question is about having a pond so close to the foundation of the house. The house is on pier and beam and the top of the proposed pond would be well below floor level of the house. The pond would also be separated from the beam of the main foundation by 5 feet of concrete porch. The size of the pond would be about 7' X 4'. The plan is to have a falls start near the top of the side of the porch. Any and all comments are welcome..... Tom
YES YES YES! I say go for it! I have wanted another in my front yard too, but I think I can wait till the next house.
That location looks like a good place, and a very peaceful spot for falling water! The size sounds manageable... You could even do a pondless waterfall there!
Mel
Oh I wish I had one in the front too! I have one in the back but it is so small I am thinking about digging it out this winter to make it a whole lot bigger.... or at least dream about it!
Silverflute,
What is the status of your front yard pond?
So far it is still just a hole in the ground. DW wants to make it a flower bed... so I'm waiting to se if she changes her mind... DOH... hope she don't read this thread!!!!
Well, flowerbeds are nice . . . But what a beautiful place for a pond! :-)