Well, it took much, much longer than I expected; but the water holding portion of the pond makeover is complete. Huzzah!

{{gwi:191628}}

I'm still doing some finish work on the edges and with the plants but all-in-all the heavy lifting is done. All of the construction paraphernalia that littered our front porch for a few months is put away.

It was an interesting and fairly fun project. EPDM liner, oh my gosh - the stuff is a heavy dang beast. The serial killer that struck in the night and decimated half our fish and frog population - beware if I ever figure out who you are. I thought for sure our fish in a wading pool on our covered front porch with 100% surface coverage of floating plants, plastic floating plants and floating frisbees would be safe. I was wrong. We lost 5 fish and 2 frogs.

I need to practice water tight seals. On the other hand, pumping water out of the pond to the raspberry patch made for lots of yummy snack breaks.

I also need to learn more about the over-winter care of tropical lilies. Mine are finally making an attempt at coming back. They might not have been very happy in the small tubs I stuck them in for the extended pond rebuild.

Sigh .... Why oh why does everything take so much longer than I think it should?

On a more positive note, I was able to get a 4" schedule 80 PVC pipe under the sidewalk, so the next expansion is a go. And hubs is even thinking it sounds neat. And my in-laws ask when I'm going to start digging.

ha-ha. I don't see them volunteering to help with this digging part .

The dragonflies and frogs have moved back in. Fish are swimming around chasing surface bugs and stuff. Pollen is falling like crazy. I'll stick some activated charcoal and batting in the pump box later this week to clear out the pollen. And, I am so much enjoying upgrading from a lunchbox pumpbox to an 18 gallon tub pumpbox.

Link below is to a bit of construction history.

Gosh, this garden pond is so much fun!

~dianne

Here is a link that might be useful: Our small pond