Evolution of a Tiny Water Garden
I began my adventure into water gardening last spring (2010) when I found myself, bored, one Sunday afternoon and took to my yard in search of adventure. I needed a furlough from digging and planting but wasn't sure what would turn up. Well, you see, I had this semicircle of empty space--well not really empty but having been relegated to the bland nothingness that comes with burmuda grass in March. Certainly, something had to be done, but what?
A semicircle that needed some personality lent itself well to a pond--nothing elaborate, just a little pond with the sound of water, no fish, but maybe a dragonfly or two.
Regrettably, I am not a good photo journalist. I get so into my design and development duties that I forget to take pictures. But, be that as it may, by the next week, the hole in the ground I dug on that bored Sunday afternoon had become my first pond, but just a little better than a puddle.
When is well enough well enough? Well, having a tiny little pond setting there in full sun in the south means one thing--algae or, as some might call it, pond scum. I spend a week researching the problem and learning all the stuff I should have learned before I ever dug the hole in the gound, and came up with the solution, or seemingly so: a bog.
One might think of a swamp or something like that when a bog is mentioned. But there are people out there, smarter than me certainly, who recommend using a 'bog' to filter your pond waters. So I set about building one. A normal bog in a water garden would receive water from the pond and its excess water would seep out into the surrounding area. Not for me, at the price of water from the local utility. Using a bog for a filter involves recycling the water, from the pond, into the bottom of the bog, up through the sand and gravel in the bog, and then back into the pond, crystal clear. Before you look I'd like to note that when it was all finished you couldn't really see the blue tub that I turned into my bog filter.
The whole thing--my first and very own water feature--looked pretty neat.
Some people--like me--are never content with good enough. Throughout the summer and fall I found myself wishing for a larger pond, a water feature that encompassed most of little back yard. Well, I just had surgery on my right hand and have been sort of on restricted duty, so I got bored again. The solution, expand the pond and add a trinkling stream around about and through my little back yard. Pictures will follow.
