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| Hello everyone!
I'm new here and completely ignorant about ponds. Would you help? This is my situation: We live in PA but we're closing on our retirement home in central Florida at the end of this month. We're buying a foreclosed house, which means it has been vacant and uncared-for for about a year, but it looks like it has been neglected for a long time before that. I've had experience with house repairs but never have I had to make a decision about a pond. There is a pond in this foreclosed house, but it has over-grown grass all around it, plus garbage and God knows what else is in there. It is also very close to the sliding doors leading to the back yard (a weird place to put a pond). We thought about getting rid of it, but coming here looking for ideas on how to do that, I thought that maybe we can save it (?). The problem is that we won't be living in the house for at least a year and a half while we repair it and prepare for retirement. How can we store it for now (where it is), if we can save it, or should we just get rid of it? If get rid of it, how? If storage, how? We thought of emptying it out and putting a plastic or something over it to cover it and to prevent water from accumulating there or animals falling in and dying, etc.---how practical is this? When we close on the house we'll only be in Florida for under a week. Can we store it or get rid of it in this short amount of time? Thank you in advance for your advice. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| What kind of pond is it (above/below ground, concrete/pre-made plastic/rubber liner), how big is it (surface area/gallons) and how close is it to the back door? Ponds can be easy to maintain or a real pain, depending on the design. Any information you have on drains, filters, pumps, etc. would help me help you.
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- Posted by gardenbutt rocky mt 4-5 (My Page) on Tue, Mar 9, 10 at 14:32
| First and foremost you may want to check it and see if there are fish in it or plant containers.If so I would offer them to others.You may get a pond person in and they can help you to find out other information about it. Personally for the time being if I were you I would drain it.Clean it out and cover it.If it is small enough I would use plywood, something solid enough you can walk on ,, and plastic or a tarp over it to keep the water out..I would also put a warning sign. This way you could do your work, get settled in and then figure out what you wish to do with it.There would also be no worries about animals or children wandering in to it before your living there.This is all very easy to take care of in a few hours, so it would fit into your schedule as well. After your settled in then I would come back to the group with all the pertinent information and ask questions.You may or may not have a pump in it.You will have to locate the electric lines as well.If you drain it you will know if it has a bottom drain or any filter system, etc,, The area it is in may not be that odd.When we landscape and install water gardens, one of the first things we do is go through the house looking out the windows for areas to place specimen plants, statuary or the water features.This way people can enjoy them in or out.Another reason it could be close to the sliding doors is because the previous owners enjoyed leaving the doors open and listening to the water sounds from falls or even frogs, in Florida, maybe even the smells from the tropical lilies drift in at night. Good luck with it |
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| Sitting here going thru old pond posts and ran across this one. Wondering if you ever came up with a plan for your Florida pond. I live in IL but have a vacation home in south Florida on the Gulf side. The house was purchased pre=foreclosure in 2007 for use as a vacation home. Like your house, it was a mess, covered in weeds and filled with junk. It also has a pond in the backyard that was icky. One of the first things we did after closing was drain the pond so we knew what was living in it. It's not a big pond - about 12' x 6' oval shaped and 24" at deepest point and also made of concrete painted sky blue. Lots of leaves, pine needles and tadpoles plus a few mosquito fish which I scooped out and saved. After refilling I put in a pond pump and the tads and fish. We were there for 4 weeks that time before we returned to IL. The pump was removed from the pond before we left FL. Next time we went down, put the pump back in and netted out what debris was in there but water was back to icky. What I did was find water hyacinth plants - can import them to FL and they are not sold in the stores near me. So I found a local guy who had some in his pond. He gave me about 12 large plants for free since he had an overabundance in his pond and was tossing them in his burn pile. It's been over 2 years since I added the hyacinths and pond remains clear even without the pump going. Only filtration is the hyacinths. Pond life is abundant. Neighbor tells me she can hear the toads at night. We only go down to the house a few times a year so when we put the pump with a bubble spray in while we're there, it's only for the sound of the water bubbling. Hyacinths are all over Florida in ponds, swamps, creeks, etc. If you're willing to harvest some yourself, you can get them for free. I would get emough to cover 1/4 of the surface because they will multiply like crazy. When we visit our house, the whole surface is covered so we have to pull out at least half of them and burn them. Hope that helps. |
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