Ever since the day we bought our house in December 1985, we've had a vision for a cascading waterfall and pond right outside our foyer. It's on a sloping hill, and would be a dramatic view from our front entrance. Well, during the fall of 2005 we were finally able to begin building the vision. The first phase was a lot of work, but was well worth the effort.
We spent a lot of time researching ponds on the internet and reading magazines, and decided to design and build out own pond using a pre-packaged kit from Aquascape Designs.
Our design makes use of the natural slope of our property. There is a 5 foot difference in elevation between where we located the waterfall and where the pond is, and a distance of about 25 feet. We have been using stacked stone for years to delineate our flower beds, so we stayed with the stacked stone theme in the design of the aquascape, 7 tons to be exact. We also had 3 tons of river pebbles delivered for the bed of the pond and the stream, as well as the walkway along the pond area. We moved it all ourselves by wheelbarrow.
We had a great crop of a unique variety of moss growing in our yard, and have transplanted it to the cracks in between the stacked stone. It is doing great, and adds a tremendous natural feel to the pond area. I also transplanted many ferns from a marshy part of our property to be on the back side of the pond area, where there wont be much foot traffic. In the pond itself, we added parrot feather, water lillies, and hyacinths.
We finished phase 2 of the pond in the summer of 2006 by planting both perennials and annuals along the stream bed. A focal point originally was a giant elephant ear that we eventually split into 6 smaller plants and placed along the wall on the opposite side of the stream, mixed in with the ferns. There is also red hydrangea near the waterfall, with large hosta around it.
In the fall of 2006, we built an arbor over the main pond area, primarily as a means to easily cover it with netting when the leaves fall, and also to hopefully keep the neighborhood hawk away from the fish. We have started growing honeysuckle up the arbor posts recently.
The pond is stocked with 6 koi and 3 shebunkin goldfish that are almost 9 years old now. There is a beautiful yellow butterfly koi, a solid black one, a blue and white one, a orange/black/white calico one, and 2 orange and black ones. The goldfsh are all mixed with orange, black, blue and white colors.
Pond owners get a tremendous amount of satisfaction from the sounds and beauty associated to their aquascape, but there is also a good bit of routine maintenance required to keep it healthy and enjoyable.
Here are 3 pics taken in May 2021 of the pond; front view,, back view, overhead view.
We've changed the plants around the pond area over the years, trying to find things that grow well and are low maintenance. You can see we now have a honeysuckle arbor, native ferns, a palmetto bush, creeping jenny, a japanese maple, veriegated ivy, ornemental bamboo and grasses, various mosses, and small elephant ears surrounding the pond area. There is a water lilly just above the main pond, and floaters with water lettuce in the main pond. There are currently 4 small koi in the pond. Its quite the zen environment. The monthly added electricity expense is only about $12, but we've gone thru 6 pumps over 17 years, at about $450 each. Ouch!