Redesigning Your Pond

Winter is the time of year when many water gardeners sit back and think about the kinds of things they can do next season to transform their own beautiful aquatic paradise from its current level of perfection to another, even more perfect level of existence.

For a significant percentage of the water gardening world, this is that time of year when the leaves have fallen, your plants have been pruned back, your pump and filter mats have been lifted out of your pond, cleaned and safely stored away.

Time for Indoor Pondering

The fish have also stopped eating and are now fully occupied with hibernation. The bubbler is agitating, the ice is beginning to form on the surface of your pond, and there may even be a skiff of snow covering the ice, along with what’s left of your pruned back terrestrials. Suddenly, planning for next season has become your top pondering priority. 

If spring, summer, and fall are the seasons when most pond lovers are actively working or playing in their pond instead of on their pond, then winter is the time of year when many of them sit back, most likely from an easy chair alongside a window in their home, and think about the kinds of things they can do next season to transform their own beautiful aquatic paradise from its current level of perfection to another, even more perfect level of existence.

Start Dreaming

So sit back, close your eyes, put your feet up, take a long, deep breath, and begin to focus your attention on those places in your own experience that come the closest to perfection. Have these experiences taken place alongside a raging river in Montana, Idaho, or Colorado? Or have these experiences taken place in the tropics like Jamaica, Bermuda, or Key West? What about these places have been most attractive and interesting to you? And most importantly, what can you glean from these experiences that you can now take and duplicate in your own backyard, in order make it even more like the paradise of your dreams?

Size Counts in the World of Water Gardening

The possibilities are actually infinite, but the first thought for many pond owners is increasing the size of their pond. According to Aquascape’s chief sustainability officer and master pond builder, Ed Beaulieu, “The most common pond owner complaint about their existing pond is that it’s too small. As a matter of fact, industry statistics show that, on average, water gardening lovers will have three different ponds in their lifetime, each one being larger than the next.” 

If this sounds like you and your pond, the initial question has to be, is there enough room in your yard to expand? If so, you can mentally explore the possibilities of pond expansion in your imagination, then you can decide in advance, where you can excavate in order to make an expansion possible. You’ll also need to consider the increased volume of water that will need to be circulated and filtered, and how that will affect your current pump size and filtering system. But in the water gardening world, most enthusiasts agree that bigger is always better, and bigger always requires planning.

Additional Waterfalls and Streams

What if your pond is about as big as your yard will allow? What else can you do to improve the water garden that has become such a centerpiece of your home life?  Think about this. The part of your pond that will always get the most attention is the waterfall and stream. They constitute the part of your pond that requires an artistic touch in order to maximize the look and the feel of your water garden. 

As a matter of fact, for professional builders, it’s usually their ability to create a beautiful waterfalls and stream that separates the Van Gogh’s and the Monet’s from all the rest. So do you want to rework your current waterfall and stream to make them look more natural, or would you prefer to add another waterfall or stream in order to make things more interesting, more seductive, and just a little bit closer to perfection?

Reworking the Pond's Edges

The solution to your pondering desires can also be a lot simpler than adding waterfalls and streams. One of the easiest things pond owners can do to give their water garden a fresh look is to redesign the edges of their pond.

Oftentimes it’s just a matter of exchanging a few of the smaller boulders with larger and more interesting character rocks, giving the pond a far more natural appearance. Adding larger boulders to the pond’s edge may require a small amount of digging to accommodate their larger size. The goal of any good pond installer is to make the pond look like Mother Nature built it over the last millennium, and simply reworking the pond’s edges can easily do the trick.

Built-In Protection for Your Fish

If you have fish in your pond, and you want to give them a cozy place to hide, you may want to create a fish cave for them. This will give your finned friends a place to shade themselves from the summer sunshine, or a place to protect themselves from a long-legged, big beaked, great blue heron who’s looking for a bite to eat. 

Fish are very resourceful creatures, and if given a place to duck and hide from the sunshine or a hungry predator, they will do so. But they must have a place to go. Installing a fish cave can be as simple as placing a section of plastic pipe on the bottom of the pond and covering it with rock and gravel. Make sure to leave the ends of the pipe open so the fish can swim on through the cave if they choose to. The rock covering may require a little stronger back, depending on the size of the rock or boulder you’re placing, but the effect is the same for the fish. It affords them a little protection that they would otherwise lack.

The Magic and Romance of Underwater Lights

Another idea that can turn your pond into the aquatic paradise of your dreams is underwater lighting. If you have a water garden without them, you’re missing out on half the fun of water gardening, especially if you spend most daylight hours at work. There’s something absolutely romantic and attractive about a pond at night with the lights reflecting throughout the water. You can actually see a lot more at night than you can during the day, if your pond has underwater lights. It’s a whole new world that’s impossible to see in the daylight.

Keeping Plants in Check

When spring finally rolls around, the snow melts, and you’re ready to really get your hands dirty, you may want to do a spring cleanout. If you do, this is the perfect time to take stock of your aquatic plants. Have they become so overgrown and aggressive that they act like they own your pond? If so, this is a good time to divide and thin them. Then, you either plant the extras or give the extras away to friends who are looking for new plants for their own pond. Experiment and discover new plants with new looks, new sizes, and new colors that will add novelty, dimension, and interest to your aquatic paradise.

Simple to Elaborate

The addition of hardscaping such as a gazebo, a bridge, fountain, or decorative bench on which wayfaring friends can sit and relax can really enhance your outdoor living area. The possibilities of what you can do to refresh the look of your pond are endless, but they don’t always have to be complicated, time-consuming, or expensive. Sometimes the simplest touch can create a profound difference in the way your pond looks and feels. It could be as simple as moving a few rocks around on the waterfalls to create a new sound, or adding a piece of driftwood to the stream.

Pondering is Friendly to Change

Whatever you do, it first has to meet your standards, and help you and your family enjoy and appreciate your pond more than you did before. Once that hurdle is jumped, you may be tempted to do a little market survey among your friends and neighbors, asking for their reactions to your new addition, knowing full well that next season you may change your mind and do something totally different. The pondering lifestyle is friendly to change, and it’s always growing and maturing.

Dreaming of Spring

So while Mother Nature has decided that you’re going to stay inside for a while, these are a few ideas and suggestions that you can dream about while you’re waiting for spring to arrive. And when spring finally comes a knockin’ at your door, you will have had time to allow your ideas to adequately percolate through your thinking process, to evolve, and to develop, allowing you to take the appropriate action when the right time comes.