I have a whiskey barrel, and plan to get a liner for it. I also have an old red water pump. I am thinking about putting them together into a water feature. I thought water trickling from the pump into the barrel would be nice. But don't know if I will have time to rig that part.

My questions are:
Do I NEED to have the water moving?
CAN I put a fountain of some type with these?
What do I do about mosquito larve?
Do I need to treat the water in any way?
Is full sun ok? or do I need part sun?

Thank you!
Jenny P

I just want a smaller water feature up by the house to enjoy.

Jenny p

Then I have 2 300 gallon ones above ground. Each of those has a lily and some marginals in them. I'm in zone 5 and have to empty them out and turn them over every winter, or they fill with water and freeze and split.

I know aesthetically they aren't great, but they are wonderful for my needs. They attract frogs, and dragonflies.

I would love to have a big pond like yours, but we always seem to need to spend our money on other things.......like the kids in college, etc. But they can be a real challenge to manage at times.

You could even get several of the smaller containers (like whiskey barrels) and have a couple miniature water lilies or a small lotus and some marginals. Unfortunately, where you're located, you'd have to somehow protect them during the winter. I usually just pull mine up (out of the above-ground tanks) and bury them in the soil next to the house for the winter. They do fine. The one in the ground, I use a deicer on in the winter.

Small features can be alot of fun too!

I got the whiskey barrel, and the liner. While shopping I saw that they were growing some plants in 2 to 3 inches of water. Things like lobelia, and elephant ears, (can't think of the offical name off-hand) anyway, I have about 6 EE bulbs potted up, that I had kept over the winter. SO I picked up a shallow liner, only about 12" deep, my thinking is to use it in an older Whiskey barrel I have already, put the two next to each other, drill holes up from the bottom of the shallow liner, about 3" up around the sides,(for drainage) then set my EEars pots in it. Maybe some other things too. I have some siberian iris in another garden I could take a chunck of.

The new deeper whisky barrel is gonna have a waterlily....I love them and that's what started this whole thing.

I think I need to read up more on wet gardens, other than the pond, everything here is dry. I have tried growing cardinal flower, near where my sump pump drains, but it dies out on me.

Thanks! Do you have pictures of your set up? I would love to see.
Jenny P

Jenny P

I don't have many pictures of my ponds that aren't totally overgrown with weeds! haha But here's 2 pics I took in early spring last year, before all the growth exploded. In July, you can hardly see the ponds for all the flowers/plants/weeds. Fortunately last year, DH weeded it all for me. (He loves to weed.......can you believe that?)
The first one is of my 300 gallon inground tank on the left (too much algae on the waterfall), and the lotus bog is on the right (not much growth there yet in early spring).

The second pic is of one of my above ground tanks with 2 tropical lilies in it. You can see that the water is fairly clear, even without a pump. I usually add marginals in there to help with the filtering.

I know these tanks are more than you want to do right now, but they're a great way to have a small watergarden without too much effort. (digging the hole is the hardest part for the inground one!). I can't tell you how much pleasure we get out of these!