first water lily bloom

Renee helped me choose a water lily to match Alex and Adriana's wedding colors (sort of), and we were so excited when it finally bloomed a couple of days before the wedding.  But, oops!..turns out hardy water lilies only bloom during the day, and close up by late afternoon.  So much for the wedding reception!  It still is a great flower, though!  The name of this water lily is "Joey Tomocik".

koi

At summer's end we had successfully raised 2 koi, 3 goldfish, and an unexpected school of about 30 baby fish. I've been told the babies are probably from eggs attached to the water plants I purchased, rather than my young fish breeding.  I brought 2 babies inside to an aquarium just to see how they turned out, but the rest remained in the pond.  I've seen them on semi-warm days this winter swimming under the ice.  The big fish are completely out of sight in the winter....or dead....time will tell.

from tadpole to tiny frog

Alex bought me some tadpoles for the new pond and by the end of the summer, two had turned into frogs, one was still a tadpole and the other was halfway between.  I managed to catch the two frogs and bring them inside to an aquarium/frog habitat, but the other two will have to tough it out in the cold pond.  Kind of an experiment to see which works best, since I have read both pros and cons for leaving the frogs alone. 

resident garter snake

This little garter snake decided our pond was a great new home.  He visited frequently during the summer and his favorite pose was as you see here.  Might be a problem next year if he returns larger and hungrier!

pond plants

This first year of creating a healthy pond in Utah has been educational, to say the least.  Turns out that the water and rocks are very alkaline, and my floating plants failed to thrive as they did in Wisconsin.  You can see the yellowing on the water lettuce in this picture.  Too late in the season, I found out how to fertilize the plants (which I had no idea one ever did).  For the last few weeks of the season, I was able to coax out more green in the leaves.  Next summer....new products needed.

landscaping - the flowers

Some of the flowers were existing plants left in place or perennials I moved from other parts of my gardens:  lamb's ear, yarrow, tiger eye sumac, coneflower, pot marigold, and Jupiter's beard.  I purchased creeping Jenny, and Irish moss, and lots of annuals.

rock edging

Note the rippled fossil rock at top right and another fossil on bottom right.  It has been fun to use parts of my rock collection in this initial edging of the pond.

adding steps

I wanted to "guide" kids away from the back area of the pond, so I made the front of the pond accessible and put steps up one side so they can look at the waterfall.  Steps were pavers I had on hand and a couple purchased.  The metal "fence" at the top of the steps came from Savers and serves as a deterrent to further exploration.  Worked fairly well.  I have a cedar bush that will fill in the top of the path in time.

waterfall and rock edging

One of the most expensive items in building a pond are the rocks.  We decided to find our own to save money.  Luckily we had plain tan Utah rocks readily available in our yard and in nearby empty fields.  For the more interesting stones, we made several trips to BLM land to (legally) obtain fancy rocks.  We were limited by our age and lack of strength as to how big the rocks could be.  We were lucky to find a ripple fossil that can be seen at the top of the waterfall.  I also used "blue" rocks in the foreground that were collected in Virginia on my dad's property over the years.  The flat piece of gray/orange rock at the top is our one purchase.  We needed a cover for the waterfall box, and the slab was perfect and only cost $7 at Lowes.  However, it was very fragile and I knew sooner or later someone would step on it and break it.  Ken built a steel panel for reinforcement from scrap Alex left around the house.

skimmer and pump box

The magpie on the left is sitting on the skimmer box that also houses the pump.  The artificial top blends nicely with the color of our edging rock.  The water plant on the left is sweet flag, which has been trimmed back for the fall.  The center plant is miniature cattail which we hope will give us cattails in summer 2012.  Both plants have been left in the pond for the winter.

creating ledges

All of the ledges except under the waterfall are very wide.  I chose to do this because of my young grandchildren.  We wanted a place where they  could sit on the edge and put their feet in the water, and if they "fell" in, the water would be very shallow at the point.  The deep spot under the waterfall is 2 1/2 feet.

installing the waterfall box and pipe

To the right of center in the back, you can see the square waterfall box.  This will be lowered into the ground and the waterfall will spill out from the front of the box.  To the left of center and just above the pond liner, you can see the black pipe that will take the pond water up to the waterfall box.

installing the liner

The back side of the pond nestles up to our existing raised flower bed.  This automatically added 2 feet of height before adding even more height with the excavated dirt from the pond hole.

the pond kit we used

Having built a pond before when we lived in Wisconsin that was a natural pond (no filtration or pump), I knew we needed help in dry hot Utah.  Taking the advice of someone who installed ponds professionally, we decided to purchase a pond kit.  Great decision for us as we didn't have to research much and saved a lot of time.  We bought an additional piece of liner and underlayment for the waterfall area.  No need to join the two pieces as the waterfall piece drapes over the pond liner and falling water (and rocks) does the rest.