Had to post one pic from this summer. I would love to see everone elses 07 model.Please!
Notice the orchids on each side of the falls.They do great all summer.

Hi Wayne

You've done it again.It's perfect.Each time I see your pond pictures I get energized.What you've done at the top of the water fall is exactly what I'm trying to accomplish.What are the green plants you have at the top that hides the spillway? Are they perennial? Do they get any flowers on them? Do they like a lot of sun?I see you have pink Astilbe at the pond. It's one of my favorites.

Thanks for the picture
swampview

Wow! That's all I have to say. B)

WOW!

Makes me want to fill mine back in and have some beer instead! hahaha :D

That is a beauty for sure. The rock foundation looks natural. Did you place them or did you build around something nature had started? If you built that what did you use for equipment to move the rocks? They look to large to move by hand.

Hi Guys
Before I built the pond, there was just a lawn there that I mowed. The falls main structure is three weathered limestone rocks each weighing about two ton.
I have never shared these thoughts with anyone till now, but these rocks which came from my bush have very special memories. As a young boy my friends and I would play on them, sit and boil maple suryp , tell stories ect. The rocks some how bring back fond memories of my father who has now gone to his reward.
We spent a lot of time working and relaxing around those old rocks. I think they hold special meaning to me only.
Anyway I moved a few in close to the house for the falls with a 580 rubber tier backhoe. The green vegetation around the spillway That Swampview was refering to is one form of sedum or stonecrop. I found that growing in another one of my old play grounds. That is a gully near by with stone outcrops along the stream. It literally growes on top of the rock in fullsun to part sun And has a yellow flower on it for about 4 weeks in early summer. The best part is that in my winter pond encloser it stays green all winter.

Those astible are so vivid pink..you've got one beautiful pallette of color going on there. I like astible and heather but they're both on my 'dont bother' list...I can't grow them even if I buy a 10 gal. full grown plant. lol

I know what you mean SadieMay. I have also got plants on my don't bother list . They look good in other peoples gardens but its a death sentence for them in my garden.

Wayne R
Your waterfall is so beautiful!!! The colors!!!!! How long did it take to get it looking like that?? Very Beautiful!!
Ellen

Thanks Ellen
I built the pond in 2000 and just like experimenting with a few new plants every year.

Dang it, Wayne. I can't see your picture. I'm logged in from work; where they must have .jpg file types blocked from view.

I'll check it out from home. Can't wait.

John

All I can say is WOW!! Looks professional. Very dazzling. I love those pink plants and the ivy!!
Do you find the ivy hard to control?

The german ivy isn't hard to control but you don't want it to get out of hand near the house or it will be in your attic before you know it. I like it cause it stays green all winter and dosn't lose its leaves so they don't endup in the pond. Mine grows up 10' to the top of the pegola and across the top another 15' over the pond.

Ok Wayne r, what do you do to contol the ivy if it grows someplace that you don't want it? Give up your secrets :lol: ;)

The german ivy can be pruned back anytime of the year and I just train it to go were I want by tieing it.

Thank for the pic and the pointer!

What are those plants growing in the pond on the left side of this last pic just below the waterfalls?

That is parrots feather . The pic is a little blury there.
Has anyone ever heard of parrots feather overwintering in the cold winter, zone 5.
Last summer I put some in my native pond, and in the spring it started to sprout again.That is were all this came from, I didn,t have to buy any. I always thought it was a tropical.

I've had parrot feather overwinter in Zone 7 some years and not other years. Was it warmer or protected where you had the parrot feather that survived the winter? I know you have a green house over your main pond. Was it in there? Or, is the native pond somewhere else? I thought you just had the one pond?

BTW, it makes sense that it would be "parrot's feather" but the correct name is "parrot feather." I think it's hard to say it that way but I refer to it as such.

Thanks for the correction Robyn. Between you and my wife I just might start spelin write somdaa.
My native pond is a old stone quarry my grandfather made in the eary 1900s. It is about 100yds from the house, out in the bush. Its about 70ft in dia. and about 9ft deep, but the water level drops quite a bit in the dry summer. This is were the parrot feather overwintered and it was very cold last year. Cold enough to skate on the pond.
I usally take the pot of parrot feather out my watergarden in Nov. thinking it is dead but this year I will cut it back and leave it in the pond and see what happens since it is protected by the canopy.
Last spring I saw it growing in the native pond so I just transplanted it to the watergarden and you can see how it spreads. The goldfish use it to spawn,or as I call it " serve breakfast to the orfes".

Terrific! I have been busy and am seeing this for the forst time. But really, you should send these pictures to a gardening magazine.

With inspiring pictures like this and much help from many of you over the past few months, I finally did build my own creation this year but it is nothing like this. WOW!

Do people know how much fun we are having?

Hi Wayne,
I live in Zone 7 and mine has come back two years in a row. Hopefully this winter doesn't get it!!
Ellen

Hi roj
Fun is right. Our mothers told us not to play in the water for years. So now is our chance. lol
I am afraid that if we solicited a garden magazine that we would be under to much pressure to make our gardens perfect, which may take the joy out of ponding. I use it as a way to relaxe.

Ellen. I would be interested to see if your parrot feather over winters again.
I can not beleive how many years I have thrown it out in the fall and bought new in the spring.

Wayne, I'm in zone 5. Seems to me my parrots feather was coming back every year. That is, until I killed them off by adding too much salt. It hasn't come back since, nor did two of my three miniature cypress trees (ouch).

John

OK John, now you have peeked my interest. What is a miniature cypress tree ,and what was it doing in your pond? Sounds neat. Could you post a pic?

I hope you do have an old pic of the trees, would love to see them too. How did they survive so far north? In my head Louisana and Cypress go hand in hand, didn't know of any northern species for that tree. Did they stay out all year or did you have to protect them for the winter? Right now I only have a 'wow' effect to my pond ( only one in the neighborhood ), but I'm more of a 'what the !!!! ' type of person. lol

Sorry guys, been out for awhile.

I'm not positive the correct name; maybe "Dwarf Cypress". I have no idea where they come from; have never seen them again. I just happened to come across them at a local pond shop 3 years ago (now out of business). I've looked all over to replace the two that died but can't find them anywhere.

They haven't grown much since I purchased them; the one remaining is about 4' tall. Yes, bare rooted in rocks. I'll try and get a picture.

Okay guys, here's a picture of what I call a mini/dwarf cypress tree. If you think it's something else please tell me. Sorry I took the photo so late in the evening, it's a bit dark.



Closer View

Very cool John. Thanks for the pic. I wonder how a cedar tree wood do in the pond.
Research time.

ohhhhhh, if I only had room. :(

Not sure about Cedar. That'd be cool though.

Informing landscaping shops I have a dwarf cypress in my pond, and want two more, I get a deer in the headlights look. They're confused when I say dwarf cypress. The last shop said they had two cypress come in but not dwarf/mini. They only had them a couple days when a lady came in and bought them both ($200 each) for her pond.

Mine were in dirt when I purchased them. I just removed the pots, and rooted them dirt and all in my pond. Last weekend I moved the Cypress to where you see it now. There's not a bit of dirt on the roots anymore, and man have the roots gotten long.

I did a quick look on-line, and it looks like there are a lot of plants that are called dwarf cypress or some variation on that. I didn't find any photos though that matched Johnny's photo. It's a cute tree!

With a lot of help from Robyn and you guys, here is my first pond as of mid-july:



This was originally intended to be a wildlife pond but what the heck, you just gotta have some fish!

Waterfall is in construction above and an upstream bog will be to the right.

Now if only I could find a cypress tree!

Great job, Roj. Water looks clear too! Keep up the good work.

Looks like a dry creek bed/stream going off to the right. Is that for the bog?

Nice job. Thanks for sharing.

John

Cute pond!

Once again, I'm jealous. You should have a really nice fall over that rock wall. The area looks nice. I'm trying a bog myself, first 'small' attempt, and I'll probably kill my one plant. lol My biggest annoyance and pet-peeve is the liner being seen. I did transplant some vinca to trail over 2 edges but the main edge that we see while sitting is all liner. Love your edging setup..what size pump are you planning for the waterfall setup/head height? I need help with that, badly. Have a 700gph now and the falls has no 'umph'. <_<

Looks great roj. You did a good job hiding the liner. Did you buy the stone or are they native to your property?

Sadiemay, I'd recommend at least 150-200 gph for every 1" (inch) width of waterfall you want. For a stream, you need 1500-2000 gph for each 1' (foot) width of stream where it enters the pond.

I have a 23" weir on my waterfall, about the same (little smaller) where stream enters pond, and a 4500gph pump. Exeeds the recommendation a bit, but makes a nice waterfall.

You also want to consider, when pumps/filters/etc are new, performance will be better than after filters, etc. start building up.

John

Thanks for all of the nice comments!

The small dry creek bed is for the overflow only. The bog is right behind it and is only a sand pit right now. Looks like next years project.

The stones are all from the area. Actually there was a rock wall that bordered the hill. I only had to push them back a bit to add the pond.

If you look carefully, the waterfall (pile of rocks) is running but with only a 450 gph pump. My wife has had a problem with "drippy-slpashy" noises so I wanted to start small. After causing her a few trips to the bathroom when the pump was first turned on :o , she now loves it! (whew!) So I will plan on a pump upgrade to accomodate the expanded waterfall. So we will upgrade to maybe 700-900 gpm ("splashy-gushy").

I spent a lot of time thinking about how I wanted the plant shelfs and edge to look. Actually, this delayed me from starting until beginning of July. The edge was kinda easy as I just added a pebble mix and I liked that, but I did not like the look of the shelf at all! The water has always been clear and all I could see was the shelf liner. So I put potted plants on it and all I could see was "potted plants on a liner". Not a natural look at all! VERY DISAPPOINTED! So I decided to run rocks & pebbles down from the edge all the way down and across the shelf. Along with the rocks I aded some shells and a few things that I collected from at the beach. The plants are now moved to the sides. Now it looks natural!

I will add a close-up picture when I find what my 16 year old did with my camera.

Beautiful pond. I like the lay out. Thanks for sharing.

The coneflowers are very healthy looking. Mine don't look near that good. Maybe mine don't like the weather here. Did you plant them from seeds?

Hi tlc,

Thanks for the nice comments. I have tried to implement many of the ideas from the people from this website.

The cone heads were grown from seeds and I have let them spread. They make a nice backdrop and a great gathering place for butterflies.