Comments on: Pond and Bog

By: ewa

ewa — Sun, 11 May 2008 15:21:22 +0000

your pond look great. you made a great job. not too many colors makes it harmonious and natural - I love it.
Greetings,

By: karen

karen — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 11:02:58 +0000

mss: I sympathize. Caliche left on the lawn is not what you want. The only clay we get here is river clay. It is good stuff, used to make Savannah brick. The Guale Indians used it to make clay pots. I have never tried! It is very heavy and hard to work, but we only get it in pockets in the sand.

By: Gail

Gail — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:28:28 +0000

There adjectives tumbling around in my head…fabulous, wonderful, fantastic, impressive…I could go on! You have created a lovely place to enjoy nature. I love Nymphaea odorata….it is impressive and not flashy.
Gail

By: mss @ Zanthan Gardens

mss @ Zanthan Gardens — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:23:24 +0000

The reason I wondered what you had done with the excavated dirt was that in our project quite a bit of subsoil consisting of rock and caliche was dug up and left on site, damaging the lawn and creating drainage problems elsewhere. Caliche is awful stuff; you may have seen some of it when you were here…a pale yellow clay not good for the garden.

Being so near the coast, you have such different problems to deal with.

By: karen

karen — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:47:51 +0000

What fun, Barbara. In the old days, I too, dug ponds by hand. But they were only little ponds and not deep enough for water lilies and lotuses. Now I want things on a larger scale. Having discovered how inexpensively you can rent heavy machinery, I’ve become more ambitious.

Sitting by the pond and watching the action is fun for everyone. There is always something going on. Frogs, dragonflies, fish, snakes… Now that the weather is lovely and the windows are open, Thom complains that the frogs make such a noise that he can’t hear the radio in the evening!

By: Barbara

Barbara — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:10:50 +0000

Great work and a wonderful result! Your pond is really beautiful! I started to dig our pond with my youngest son who then was still a young boy! We had much fun though the rest of the family (four more people!) didn’t want to have a pond. Actually all of us like now to sit there and watch what is going on in the pond…
Have a good time,
Barbara

By: karen

karen — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:07:42 +0000

Thanks, Dave. The patio and walkway are concrete pavers. I decided I couldn’t afford natural stone for the whole lot, so I used stone only for the small patio with the bench down by the pond. I now think I was being unnecessarily cheap about this, but there is no question that concrete pavers are easier to lay than natural stone. They are also easy to cut with a diamond-tipped circular saw or chop saw blade.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:49:35 +0000

Wow! That looks great. You tied it in nicely to your patio. What kind of stone did you use for the patio and walkway?

By: karen

karen — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:12:32 +0000

We would never have dirt removed. Our house is 14′ above sea level and sea level is rising rapidly. Every rock and spot of dirt added to our property delays the inevitable day when we shall have to abandon it to the waves and move inland.

The excavated dirt was needed to build a bank to hold the pond in place. It’s not clear from the photos, but the pond is on a slope from house to marsh and from west to east, so the southeast side needed tons of dirt.

Yes, we get lots of raccoons in and around the pond. They go for a paddle or swim occasionally. I have never seen them fishing. This may be because the pond is quite near Thom’s large bird feeder, and the raccoons’ favorite feed is the spilled seed under the feeder.

We also have at least one snake in the pond. Since most water snakes are poisonous, I’m going to buy me a hefty pair of hip waders and wait until cold weather before I wade in and do the many pond chores I need to do.

By: mss @ Zanthan Gardens

mss @ Zanthan Gardens — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:45:16 +0000

Thanks for writing this up for me. I always find the scale of your efforts to be incredible and inspiring. It certainly makes me want to just get out there and get something done rather than being so timid. (Actually, I do understand your original remark about gardening and creativity. I don’t have a pre-designed garden but an evolving one. Looking at your hardscape projects, I’d have to say you are more of a designer than you give yourself credit for.)

One problem with my pond is that it is too shallow–the contractor ran out of time digging it out before the date he had scheduled the cement truck. I wish I had known more about ponds then and asked him to reschedule.

What did you do with the dirt that you excavated? Did you use it to build up the sides or did you have to have it removed? Also, aside from the herons, do you have other pests in the ponds. The reason we currently have our pond covered in netting is because of raccoons. When they go after the fish (which so far have been able to escape them) they stir up the muck in the pond and tear up the plants. It was the latter that I really minded as our fish were just same 10-cent comet goldfish you have. (I’d never had fish before and I didn’t want anything expensive. As you note, they do grow rapidly.)