low maintenance ponding

I thought I would start this up under its own
thread.
(Galen, you need to post your low maintenance
solution to weeding here. DH thinks it has
possibilities and fits in well with his flame thrower
solution to weeds.)

We do pond work once a year.
DH rounds up one of the boys, both of them if
he can catch them. I supervise :-)
Pond is drained. Fish captured and put in the
waterfall pool (150 gallon stock tank hidden in
behind the waterfall).
Dump as much hornwort as we would like
on the ground.
Lily baskets and pump basket lifted out.
Lilies divided, only if needed. Fertilized.
Iris island trimmed around the edges.
Pump hosed off, pump basket hosed off.
90-ish% of gunk on the floor of the pond
shoveled out, distributed to happy trees.
Pond refilled, very slowly. Dechlor added.
Fish put back in (and any frogs and turtles
wandering around). Put back hornwort.
Waterfall turned back on.
Ignore pond the rest of the year.
Winter care - turn off waterfall, add bubbler
to keep a hole open in the ice. Go back to
ignoring.

k :-)



k

Low maintenance and no maintenance are different terms for us.

We do very little to maintain the pond...we think. The three berm
ponds and three upflow barrels are drained annually and the 3 x 5
bottom of the 'deep well' get netted out once a year (that is where
big stuff finally goes. (Total time needed: less than 2 hours).
Beyond that, we throw out loads of hyacinth and cerley during growing
season. The berm ponds are veggie filters and aleviate the need of
any other filter. No filter pads to clean. Everything else is
tinkering (except feeding the koi in the main pond). The water level
is self-maintaining by a toilet valve.

Does that come up low maintenance?

Jim

Mine is low maintenance.
SPRING veggie filter started up:
suck out water and junk accumulated in veggie filter over winter.
go buy 3-4 nice hanging baskets with flowers.
find the bucket filter, rinse, insert pump into this, lower into pond.
dig up some water celery growing next to pond, wash off dirt, insert
into plastic pot (no dirt) and hang on screws in veggie filter.
haul Cyprus out of basement, trim dead tops and roots, insert into pot
OR, bend one dead stem over, staple to hold at right level for roots
in water.
find itty bitty pump and hook up to UV filter
DURING SEASON:
fertilize the baskets of flowers
haul up the bucket filter 3-4 times to clean it, after that the bucket
filter isnt needed
FALL veggie filter clean up.
remove the plants and trash everything except the Cyprus which goes
into the basement in a tub under lights.
suck the filter clean.
put the plastic lean to greenhouse thingy over the top to winterize
drop in the heater

getting those plants out in fall is not an easy thing. they grow so
large they are wedged in and have to be cut out without cutting the
liner. I would like to try so rigid PVC with holes in the bottom to
see if Cyprus will grow well but I can get them out easily .. next
year.

I wish I had my whole pond inside a greenhouse so I wouldnt have to
remove the plants in fall and start em up again in spring. I miss how
it looks in Aug, Sept, Oct. Ingrid

On Wed, 4 Jul 2007 00:36:48 CST, Phyllis and Jim
<> wrote:

>Low maintenance and no maintenance are different terms for us.
>
>We do very little to maintain the pond...we think. The three berm
>ponds and three upflow barrels are drained annually and the 3 x 5
>bottom of the 'deep well' get netted out once a year (that is where
>big stuff finally goes. (Total time needed: less than 2 hours).
>Beyond that, we throw out loads of hyacinth and cerley during growing
>season. The berm ponds are veggie filters and aleviate the need of
>any other filter. No filter pads to clean. Everything else is
>tinkering (except feeding the koi in the main pond). The water level
>is self-maintaining by a toilet valve.
>
>Does that come up low maintenance?
>
>Jim

Even easier for us, for the *next* pond
would be a bottom drain and a skimmer!
Also our next pond won't be as deep so
we can trim plants with ease. And it will
be formal so we don't have to deal with
dry stacked rock (easy for dogs to tip
in). Will also have one pond for goldfish
and one pond for critters. And a long winding
stream to float paper boats in...

k :-)

LOL! I don't know Ingrid, but if you can't type up your chores in 20 words
or less I think you've over shot low maintenance. ;-)

I wouldn't call my pond systems lo-maintenance. Fairly easy, yes, don't
have to work on them very often, etc. Anything to do with heavy wet plants,
I don't consider lo-maintenance, I'd call back straining, especially
twice/year movement. Nor any coverings for winter or leaf fall (I'd love to
get out of that). Green house or even a screen house would be so nice.

Lo-maintenance in my book would be that high tech million dollar pond where
the computers do a lot of the work. ;-) Or a vortex filter system where I
just pull a valve to drain the muck out of the filters. ~ jan


On Wed, 4 Jul 2007 11:54:47 CST, dr- wrote:

>Mine is low maintenance.
>SPRING veggie filter started up:
>suck out water and junk accumulated in veggie filter over winter.
>go buy 3-4 nice hanging baskets with flowers.
>find the bucket filter, rinse, insert pump into this, lower into pond.
>dig up some water celery growing next to pond, wash off dirt, insert
>into plastic pot (no dirt) and hang on screws in veggie filter.
>haul Cyprus out of basement, trim dead tops and roots, insert into pot
>OR, bend one dead stem over, staple to hold at right level for roots
>in water.
>find itty bitty pump and hook up to UV filter
>DURING SEASON:
>fertilize the baskets of flowers
>haul up the bucket filter 3-4 times to clean it, after that the bucket
>filter isnt needed
>FALL veggie filter clean up.
>remove the plants and trash everything except the Cyprus which goes
>into the basement in a tub under lights.
>suck the filter clean.
>put the plastic lean to greenhouse thingy over the top to winterize
>drop in the heater
>
>getting those plants out in fall is not an easy thing. they grow so
>large they are wedged in and have to be cut out without cutting the
>liner. I would like to try so rigid PVC with holes in the bottom to
>see if Cyprus will grow well but I can get them out easily .. next
>year.
>
>I wish I had my whole pond inside a greenhouse so I wouldnt have to
>remove the plants in fall and start em up again in spring. I miss how
>it looks in Aug, Sept, Oct. Ingrid
>
>On Wed, 4 Jul 2007 00:36:48 CST, Phyllis and Jim
><> wrote:
>
>>Low maintenance and no maintenance are different terms for us.
>>
>>We do very little to maintain the pond...we think. The three berm
>>ponds and three upflow barrels are drained annually and the 3 x 5
>>bottom of the 'deep well' get netted out once a year (that is where
>>big stuff finally goes. (Total time needed: less than 2 hours).
>>Beyond that, we throw out loads of hyacinth and cerley during growing
>>season. The berm ponds are veggie filters and aleviate the need of
>>any other filter. No filter pads to clean. Everything else is
>>tinkering (except feeding the koi in the main pond). The water level
>>is self-maintaining by a toilet valve.
>>
>>Does that come up low maintenance?
>>
>>Jim
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

<dr-> wrote in message
news:468bd039$0$1345$. com...
> I wish I had my whole pond inside a greenhouse so I wouldnt have to
> remove the plants in fall and start em up again in spring. I miss how
> it looks in Aug, Sept, Oct. Ingrid
======================
Look into those inexpensive Harbor Freight Greenhouses. They're 10 X 12'
and two can be hooked together. They're $700 when on sale several times a
year.
--

RM....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
rec.ponder since late 1996.
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
Zone 6. Middle TN USA
~~~~ }<((((*> ~~~ }<{{{{(ö>

Our first pond was something like 5000 gallons, earth bottomed, with a
14*3 by one-to-three foot deep swampy-type filter pond. It was low
maintenance until my wife decided that we needed to edge it in limestone
boulders and the sides all fell in.

The next one was much smaller and had a liner. It was low maintenance
until we had to fill it in to sell the house.. That was a lot of work.

On Thu, 5 Jul 2007 12:07:32 CST, rmx256 <> wrote:

>The next one was much smaller and had a liner. It was low maintenance
>until we had to fill it in to sell the house.. That was a lot of work.

That's sad, did the new people not want it?

I have some friends selling their house soon with a really nice pond. I
think he too is concerned he may have to fill it in, and it was 4 truck
loads of dirt out. I sure hope the new people are pond people.

So far my sister has sold 2 houses with ponds that the people kept. The
last one the people gave her $1,000 so the fish would stay. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

On Tue, 3 Jul 2007 22:07:54 CST, k <> wrote:

>
>I thought I would start this up under its own
>thread.
>(Galen, you need to post your low maintenance
>solution to weeding here. DH thinks it has
>possibilities and fits in well with his flame thrower
>solution to weeds.)

I do many weird things. Which weirdness would you refer to?
--
Galen Hekhuis
We'll cross that bridge when it rears its ugly head

>>Which weirdness would you refer to?

Target practice with weeds. DH wishes he could
get away with that in suburbia.

k :-)