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Building a pond for the backyard.


Mandrew968

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Around Christmas time(late 2014), I finally got the wild hair to start digging my pond. Always make sure before you begin, you have a committed helper!

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After every digging session, it's important to water it in--I would go as far as to say it's therapeutic.

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Before long we had some kinda shape going! At this point, I was not sure whether I was going to keep the Bizzy...

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Some of the rock has really neat natural holes in it, full of sand--the rest is very dense and shaving it down makes it look a lot like homemade macaroni and cheese; a killer look in my opinion.

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The panhandle portion is not even completely outlined yet(lots of work this thing is turning into!) but we still have to water! The rock formations are really gnarly.

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Here is a shot of it starting to almost look like a pond. Last shot of the day. The big hammer drill I have been using is giving me carpal tunnel...

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No liner?.....that's a really big hand dug pond!

David Simms zone 9a on Highway 30a

200 steps from the Gulf in NW Florida

30 ft. elevation and sandy soil

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No liner and I am far from finished. My rock is too nice to cover up with a fake looking liner-once I am all chopped out, I will stucco the places it drains most; I would like it to drain a little into the yard, natunaturally-maybe 10% of the entire volume every week? I can replace that with fresh well water.

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:blink2: ...........so this solid rock is under your soil a few feet? .....bizarre to me.....I could put a gallon of water on the ground here and it would be gone in 30 seconds. So how does your yard drain?

David Simms zone 9a on Highway 30a

200 steps from the Gulf in NW Florida

30 ft. elevation and sandy soil

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Even a solid rock can be porous and has some cracks in it. That's some heavy duty sealed ground there.

In my back yard I can dump a 5 gallon bucket of water and it disappears immediately without any runoff.

Edited by Pando
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How soon until the kids end up in it? It looks nice. I like the look of your native rock. So... Any plantings planned? Maybe water lovers like Mauritia, or non-palms?

Woodville, FL

zone 8b

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Wow. That's some serious hard work, MAndrew968!

... maybe a cascading fake waterfall at one end? If the water is basically clean, you can buy those kits which pump up the water into a tube and spit it back out over your "waterfall" over and over (assuming that you can pile up a bunch of rocks on one end to serve as the waterfall backdrop, and are able to hide the tubes behind plantings).

Just a thought. It may be a crazy idea, but those fake waterfalls are increasingly popular among "water feature" maniacs. It's a build-it-yourself concept.

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:blink2: ...........so this solid rock is under your soil a few feet? .....bizarre to me.....I could put a gallon of water on the ground here and it would be gone in 30 seconds. So how does your yard drain?

I am on top of a natural coral rock ridge. My topsoil is from a foot to 2 feet depending where... my drainage like anywhere in South Florida (besides Sweetwater) is great. My elevation is about 12 feet which is high for us.

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And some of you may have noticed, but just in case, I removed that everglades palm and replaced it with this--thought it would add to the pond, eventually and also a great spot for this one.

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Yes. Pure Oolitic limestone. Thanks for the encouragement; this weekend should see quite a bit of progress.

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Very cool! I, too, am baffled at the lack of a liner - I'll be interested in hearing how long the water level stays where you want it to, before adding more water.

Are you going with fish? Aquatics / marginals ? Or just see what goes in on its own?

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Wow Andrew, you didn't Ponder about this for long, your straight into it :greenthumb:

I can "very much" see why you want to keep the rock look, and "imagine" you will need a good 44gal barrel of stucco to keep it sealed.

All best with its developments and look fwd to updates.

Pete :)

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This is what it looked like Saturday morning. Notice all of the deep holes are filled with mud--I cut trenches in the rock to funnel all of the sand and dirt into these areas(via watering) so I could use as part of potting mix for my nursery. Soil is expensive and why waste it?

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And this is Saturday afternoon, after I got done washing the rock--before that, I excavated all of the usable dirt into 3 gallon pots for easy storage and transport.

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Here are a few more shots to help show some of the progress. Yesterday, I contacted Mr. Ken Johnson and he got me RE-motivated on this project...

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Very cool! I, too, am baffled at the lack of a liner - I'll be interested in hearing how long the water level stays where you want it to, before adding more water.

Are you going with fish? Aquatics / marginals ? Or just see what goes in on its own?

I am hesitant to say what will become of this, as of right now, due to city codes... I am just trying to get it to look like something nice--the correct term, codewise is 'grotto'. So don't think pond, right now--think 'grotto', for semantical purposes...

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Looks more along the lines of a mini brook type situation ? And that's a hell of a tough job! Chip away at it, no pun intended, and you should have some satisfaction one day!

IF water actually stays in it - you're golden. Otherwise, there are tricks you can use to make it less water permeable and you can have a kind of oasis. But - hell of a job.

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I commend you on all the hard work. wow. good on you for trying to tackle such a tough project. with it being as shallow as it is, are you worried at all about water flow? I sort of envision some pockets of stagnant water and that could mean trouble with your insects there.

Grant
Long Beach, CA

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I commend you on all the hard work. wow. good on you for trying to tackle such a tough project. with it being as shallow as it is, are you worried at all about water flow? I sort of envision some pockets of stagnant water and that could mean trouble with your insects there.

I know it may look like a certain way, but drainage is never an issue here(unless you live in sweetwater--the only place that ever seems to have flooding trouble in South Florida). I am very much thankful for the praise and support from my fellow palmtalkers! I think Pete said it best when he mentioned stucco, though I am not sure how much I will need, in the end.

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you can chisel out the shape you want.. maybe rent a jackhammer. Sell the pieces on ebay for Saltwater enthusiasts

that rock looks like it might be very nice in a tank!

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I mentioned earlier that Mr. Ken Johnson got me motivated; He is letting me use this bad boy on my project. The sucker is no joke! Ergonomic in the gripping and very user friendly, but the beast is at least 90lbs and I am only good for about 10 minutes at a time--but that's equal to 3 days with the previous tool i was using, and it takes me about two hours to clean up the 10 minutes of rubble, made at each go.

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you can chisel out the shape you want.. maybe rent a jackhammer. Sell the pieces on ebay for Saltwater enthusiasts

that rock looks like it might be very nice in a tank!

Ebay sounds like a lot of work and I am not a rock shipper... but I did have to get creative with all the nice sized rock, I was removing...

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More progress pics... Thanks to Mr. Johnson's motivation, I am looking at a finish date of this weekend, rather than this summer!

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Looking really nice! Can't wait to see the finished product. Little waterfalls, bubblers, fountains, etc. to keep the water moving? Little fish to cut down on the mosquito larvae?

Tom

Bowie, Maryland, USA - USDA z7a
hardiestpalms.com

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Lookn great Andrew, it will look schmick when its sealed and full of water, and now after seeing it grow in size I "guess" it will need "more" than 1 x 44 gal barrels of stucco or the likes to "really " seal it, keep having fun "creating" :)

Pete

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Looking really nice! Can't wait to see the finished product. Little waterfalls, bubblers, fountains, etc. to keep the water moving? Little fish to cut down on the mosquito larvae?

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Coral Gables, FL 8 miles North of Fairchild USDA Zone 10B

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