Hey all! I would love to get some input from you on something.
My parents are in their 80s and live 11 hours away. My Dad is an avid gardener and loves his yard. He is creative and needs to have a project at all times. His body isn't cooperating with his creative urges, so he could really use the help.
He loves my pond and got bitten by the water feature/pond bug. Last summer, we drove up to see them and he had some materials for a pond. Not ideal materials - and I knew it at the time. But he's on a fixed income and we only had three days to be there. It all started with a cool dragon fountain. That is where the waterfall starts from. My whole family worked super hard to put in a little pond for him and it ended up looking pretty cool, considering. We worked 8 hour days in scorching heat, alternating with torrential rains. He had a pre-formed plastic pond, some scraps of liner, gravel, and some very interesting rocks (but the rocks were like Swiss cheese -- full of interesting holes - but not good for directing water flow.) We needed to use what he had there - no time to order anything different and budget, of course, was an issue.
But the pond leaks. The preform settled down at the back end under where the water flows in from the fountain above. He is having to carry buckets of water out every day, just to keep his iris roots covered.
I was upset about it -- hating that our best efforts weren't working and knowing we were unable to get there to fix it.
In a panic, I tried calling Aquascape to see about a pond contractor in their area. But that was silly. They are in the middle of nowhere and don't have money for that anyway.
Now - his creative juices are flowing again and he has decided to buy a big piece of liner and pull all the other stuff out. He will expand the hole a little bit and rework the waterfall. I think he will get some rocks better suited to having the water flow OVER instead of right through!
(Husband wants to get on the computer to do taxes, so I will cut this short here soon.)
Bottom line, he is going to redo it and he probably isn't physically cut out to do it. I don't think we can get up there to help this year.
He is currently planning on doing the same thing for filtration - just having the small pump in a mesh bag, with the water running up to the dragon fountain and spilling down over some rocks, into the pond, for aeration. (The pump is solar and only runs during the day. I know it isn't ideal. But running electrical out there opens up a whole other can of worms that he isn't physically geared for.)
My dilemma - a part of my brain wants to encourage him to do some sort of little bog filter. To "do it right" so it will function better. But other than the leak, the plants seemed to do really well and his tiny goldfish seemed happy.
I have an idea in my mind of what would be best. I know if he does something that ends up not working well, he will be disappointed (again.) But we live so far away, coming up to help with a big project like that isn't an option. I have an idea of what would work BEST but that involves more work than he can do and probably more expense than they can afford. If we can't come up to do it for him, I feel like I should just keep my mouth shut.
Just venting to my Pond People.
My parents are in their 80s and live 11 hours away. My Dad is an avid gardener and loves his yard. He is creative and needs to have a project at all times. His body isn't cooperating with his creative urges, so he could really use the help.
He loves my pond and got bitten by the water feature/pond bug. Last summer, we drove up to see them and he had some materials for a pond. Not ideal materials - and I knew it at the time. But he's on a fixed income and we only had three days to be there. It all started with a cool dragon fountain. That is where the waterfall starts from. My whole family worked super hard to put in a little pond for him and it ended up looking pretty cool, considering. We worked 8 hour days in scorching heat, alternating with torrential rains. He had a pre-formed plastic pond, some scraps of liner, gravel, and some very interesting rocks (but the rocks were like Swiss cheese -- full of interesting holes - but not good for directing water flow.) We needed to use what he had there - no time to order anything different and budget, of course, was an issue.
But the pond leaks. The preform settled down at the back end under where the water flows in from the fountain above. He is having to carry buckets of water out every day, just to keep his iris roots covered.
I was upset about it -- hating that our best efforts weren't working and knowing we were unable to get there to fix it.
In a panic, I tried calling Aquascape to see about a pond contractor in their area. But that was silly. They are in the middle of nowhere and don't have money for that anyway.
Now - his creative juices are flowing again and he has decided to buy a big piece of liner and pull all the other stuff out. He will expand the hole a little bit and rework the waterfall. I think he will get some rocks better suited to having the water flow OVER instead of right through!
(Husband wants to get on the computer to do taxes, so I will cut this short here soon.)
Bottom line, he is going to redo it and he probably isn't physically cut out to do it. I don't think we can get up there to help this year.
He is currently planning on doing the same thing for filtration - just having the small pump in a mesh bag, with the water running up to the dragon fountain and spilling down over some rocks, into the pond, for aeration. (The pump is solar and only runs during the day. I know it isn't ideal. But running electrical out there opens up a whole other can of worms that he isn't physically geared for.)
My dilemma - a part of my brain wants to encourage him to do some sort of little bog filter. To "do it right" so it will function better. But other than the leak, the plants seemed to do really well and his tiny goldfish seemed happy.
I have an idea in my mind of what would be best. I know if he does something that ends up not working well, he will be disappointed (again.) But we live so far away, coming up to help with a big project like that isn't an option. I have an idea of what would work BEST but that involves more work than he can do and probably more expense than they can afford. If we can't come up to do it for him, I feel like I should just keep my mouth shut.
Just venting to my Pond People.
