My pond

Ok, finally posting my pond here. It is a small pond, and still needs work - I have to get around to disguising the waterfall box, and do some other touch-up, but I think you can see where its going now. This is Pond Mark II; the first one had a liner and when the hurricanes came, the ground water caused the liner to lift up and when the waters receeded, there was about 6" of water in the bottom of a very out of shape pond from where the sand collapsed. This one is cement with sealer. I'm going to do the tedious thing and post a lot of images of how it came to where it is, so bear with me! Those of you from the Florida forum, you can skip this, as I've posted most of the images there already.

This is my brother and son doing the cement, a year ago:

The last picture was May, this is November (2006). Pond completed, I cemented the rocks around and built two retaining dry stone walls (had help on one of the walls from some friends) and put horse manure over the sand.

And this is a few days ago, on Apr 20.

This is my favorite of the pictures my DH took that day. This is entering the backyard from the walk through gate to the right of my house. You can see where the pond is in my little backyard here.

Oh my, that's just lovely!

Thanks! Its not how I want it yet, but there has been progress, and I know when I was looking at a barren corner with a sandy hole it was encouraging to me to see other member's posts about Then and Now. So hopefully this will encourage someone at the Muddy Hole stage to persevere.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions or anything, I welcome them! Good ideas are always appreciated!

Very beautiful! What a peaceful space!

Very pretty area. Sometimes I wish I had a fence to work with.

Any fish int he pond?

Five koi and several goldfish.

No Specks?

Love the pond...great idea on how you've cemented for formation...did you use regular cement and if you don't mind sharing, what type of sealer did you use...I got carried away last year and started digging/digging and more digging by hand on a sunny afternoon and ended up with about a 18 x 18 ft. pond (not bad for a 58 yr.old lady)...and secured the liner but would love to add an area..your method has peaked my interest...

No that's not bad for a 58 yr old lady. This 60 yr old gal laid 11 tons of flagstone unassisted. But that's another post. You are asking the same questions I had. Looking forward to the answers.

We used bag cement, the high-strength kind, like you'd pour a patio with or build poured cement steps with. We sealed with grey Thoroseal with Acryl60, and added black cement dye (the powdered kind) to darken it. According to the technical experts at Thoroseal (I emailed them and talked to them by phone) you can add up to one bag dye per bag of Thoroseal - the dye is a small bag, and the Thoroseal is a 50-lb bag. It took two bags to do the pond according to directions (two coats, etc.) The stores here wanted to try to give me the regular Thorseal that comes in the orange can, but that isn't approved for potable water, and it isn't approved for standing water. The stuff we used is approved for water holding tanks for potable water. The product specs are here:

http://www.thoroproducts.com/pdf_info/INF_TSEAL_3.06.pdf

The waterfall isn't sealed - it has a butyl liner under the rocks, which is laid over cement "steps" that we did at the time of the cement for the pond.

You two "old" ladies want to come dig for me? You sound like you work harder than my sons!

Snapple 45 - amazing what we can do when we want something done 'NOW' lol...
Killer Chihuahua...thanks for the great info...as soon as I complete the projects I have started outside I'm going to get serious on your method...

Don't forget to use chickenwire reinforcing, and check with your cement people for additives or type of cement to use to prevent cracking in freezing weather. I used chickenwire, but of course don't have to worry about freezes.

I am wondering, just wondering here as I have zip experience, what cement pool installers use in areas of hard freezes. My DH says he THINKS they use something called hydraulic cement.

snapple, i am so seriously going to peek over your fence the next time i'm in ohio! my ponds are built in between my decks, i'll try to post a pic in the morning....IF i only had space, instead of being in a tiny yard subdivision!
I certainly understand the Unassisted labor part! i hand dug each of my ponds, and in a subdivision, there's no where to put the dirt! So, i'd just fling it and hope it would spread thin enough to not kill the grass it was landing on,lol....

:D ponders are nuts, face facts!