from cattails to catfish

Backyard ponds, water gardens enhance landscape

by Susie Taylor

Homeowners have taken more of an interest in using water as a landscape component. And whether you want to add a pond or a smaller water garden to your landscape plan, you’re pretty much limited by three things – your space, your funds and your imagination.

So say Steve Blessing, owner of Green Vista Water Gardens of Ohio near Springfield, and Adam Hater, general manager of Jones Fish Hatchery near Cincinnati.

You can create an entire ecosystem with plants and fish or develop an aesthetic water treatment with either a pond or water garden; what you decide to install is where the space and funding questions come into play.

Whereas established homeowners and condominium residents may focus more on smaller water gardens, a new homeowner or someone looking for a lot of fill dirt may consider a pond, Hater said.

Pond Ponderings
“More and more residential homeowners are putting in ponds not so much because they desire a fishing or swimming hole, but because it’s cheaper to excavate dirt from their own property rather than bring dirt in as fill around their construction sites,” Hater said.

But before you hire an excavation crew, call your county Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), Hater said.

“Someone from SWCD will come out, look over your property and let you know if your property is conducive to a pond,” he added. “Their advice is extremely valuable, and it’s your tax dollars at work so use it.”

Once SWCD has OK’d the dig, then excavation can begin. But make sure you hire a reputable pond excavator. Again, your county SWCD could be helpful in giving names of local excavators. You can also contact the Ohio Land Improvement Contractors Association for suggestions of reputable pond excavators.

Now that you have a hole, you can wait for the rains to start. “Mainly, that’s how a pond will fill – from run-off,” Hater said. “Occasionally you may be lucky enough to hit an underground spring.”

Another consideration with a pond is the safety of your family, guests and neighbors. According to an Ohio State University Extension Fact Sheet, farm pond accidents can be reduced with the posting of warning signs and by providing rescue equipment.

As a landowner, you have a responsibility to ensure the safety of guests to your home. If you don’t maintain your property, or are negligent in providing for visitor’s safety, you could be liable in the event of an injury.

Gardening for goldfish
If you want the water, but don’t want to go through a big excavation, a water garden may be just the thing for you.

“Typically, people who install water gardens are already gardeners. It’s a natural progression,” according to Green Vista’s Blessing. “You can go as little as a patio pond on a deck at a condo to any size – say 50 feet by 50 feet or smaller. We’re not talking about a farm or retention pond but an ornamental water treatment.”

How detailed you get also may determine if you want to do it yourself or hire someone else to install your water garden. Once you decide about whether or not to include fish in your garden, you next need to choose either a formal (geometric) or informal (free-form) garden, Blessing said.

“If you want clear water all the time with no green or fuzz on the sides of the pond, your maintenance will be pretty involved and time consuming,” Blessing said. “On the other hand, if you can tolerate cloudy water for a few weeks at the change of the seasons and don’t mind a little fuzzy green sides and bottom, the most you need to do is keep any falling debris like leaves or trash from sinking to the bottom or collecting in the garden.”

Blessing said the most common problem water gardeners encounter is that their gardens have too many fish and they feed them too often.

“If you keep the number of fish on the low side and keep leaves from collecting, the maintenance of a water garden isn’t too bad,” Blessing said.

Susie Taylor is a freelance writer from MadisonCounty.

You must be logged in to leave a comment. Click here to login or register.