Did I ruin my new pond?

[c2g]

Not sure about the sump pump. I set my overflow to drain into an area on land - a vernal pool of sorts, I guess - which will contain plants that thrive in wet conditions but can tolerate dry stretches in the summer. When I siphon out excess, as I did last night, I just hook a hose up to the spigot, connect another length of hose to that and set the open end in the pond. Turn the water on and disconnect the two hoses at a point lower than the hose in the pond and you have a (slow) siphon.

I like the look of your pond as well. Those areas where the liner sticks out would bother me though. Not sure what I would do about that spot in the middle with the potted plant on it.

I'm adding a small flagstone walkway in between the pond and the garage to get back to the pergola area. You can see how it's done in the image below.

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[Kristi Kelty]

I was originally planning on having a plantable "island" in the middle.....or maybe flat stones for now to hide the liner. It looks like your shelf area is all lined with pea gravel? Do you then plant right into that for the marginal plants?

 

[addy1]

I was originally planning on having a plantable "island" in the middle.....or maybe flat stones for now to hide the liner. It looks like your shelf area is all lined with pea gravel? Do you then plant right into that for the marginal plants?

You could, if brave enough, cut the liner leave it high enough put put some rocks, dirt around the edge to hide the liner, dig in a under water rock shelf (like mentioned to hide the pond liner). In the center area, dig in a hole, say 12-18 inches deep, as wide as possible, fill with pea gravel, plant some plants in it. Or put in dirt with some gravel below (for drainage during a hard rain) put some neat plants in the dirt, creepers, ground covers, a few various height tall plants in the center. The creepers will creep into the pond, same with the ground covers.
Have the dirt from the pond sloping down into the hole, so there is no water running into the pond from the hole.

That is what I would do if mine.

 

[c2g]

Drained the rest of the pond yesterday, removed the last of the excess soil/sand mix, and topped off what spilled into the overwintering hole with a few inches of fresh sand and a few inches of pea gravel on top. Aquatics being delivered today - had to get them today or wait another two weeks.

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[c2g]

Plants are in. Clockwise: golden club, blueflag, scouringrush horsetail, narrow leaf cattail, pickerelweed, blueflag, green arrow arum. Cloudy after planting but the clay already settled a lot.

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[addy1]

Very nice! love the plants

 

[Kristi Kelty]

Love this~ can you recommend an online site for obtaining these plants?

 

[c2g]

I get all of my plants, including the aquatics, from a local nursery specializing in native plants. I have a few of them within a 20 mile radius of me, so never had to order anything online.

 

[haver79]

Nice pond. Really like the shape.

 

[c2g]

Here's an update on my pond. Got all my plants in around 50% of the perimeter a week ago - about 100+ perennials. Topped everything off with a layer of leaf mold I've been composting since last fall.

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I have the runoff almost where I want it to where everything goes into the mini bog I created near the back fence (red cardinal flowers closest to the pond are the start of it.

Aside from a few toads who have been there all along, I'm seeing more dragonflies stopping by, especially now that we've been in a heat wave for the past few weeks hitting 80 in October.

Plan is to put in the flagstone walkway back to the pergola this fall and then plant out the other half in the spring. Mosquitoes have been an issue. Hit them with a round of dunks a few weeks back but seeing whether I can hold off this time around to promote a food source for the insects and amphibians I'm trying to attract.

 

[JohnHuff]

Beautiful!

 

[Kristi Kelty]

Looks great! LIke your bog area~

 

[addy1]

Very nice!

 

[Tula]

Lovely Kim

 

[c2g]

I was about to update the status of my pond and I see the image gallery links aren't working. Not sure if I'd need to go in and update the code on each post, but images are still in my gallery.
Oh well.

After spending 2014 frozen solid under 2' snow drifts, I was happy to see my plants had survived and are starting to push through. Got 2" of snow today, but I remain positive.