Front Yard Pond

The previous owners of our house left us a pond in the front yard.  We completely ignored this pond for about two years.  Last week I decided to pull it out and get rid of it.  It was full of muck, and just gross.  I began to miss it a few days later and decided to put it back in.  Tami was gone for the week, and I thought i'd surprise her with a little oasis in our front yard.

Originally the pond sat up a little high in the ground, so the first thing I did was to dig the hole a little deeper so that it would set deeper into the lawn.  By the time I got it all leveled out , it ended up being higher than I wanted, but I decided to roll with it and see how it turned out.  The next step was to pull out all of the grass and weeds in the area around the pond.

Photo from Home Depot web site

Once I got most of the grass pulled up, I started putting down the weed blocker lawn fabric.  I used the "Easy Gardener WeedBlock 3 ft. x 50 ft. Polypropylene landscape fabric" from Home Depot.  It runs $5 to $10 bucks for 50 feet.

I Stapled the fabric down with lawn and garden staples - Also from Home Depot.  They look like 5 inch metal U shapes:

Picture From Home Depot Website

I unrolled several feet of lawn fabric and stretched it flat.  Then every foot or two, just stuck a staple down through the fabric into the dirt to hold the fabric tight in place.  It goes pretty quickly once you get started.  This keeps the grass and weeds from growing back up through the mulch and stones I'm going to put down on top of the fabric.

Picture From Home Depot Website

Once I had the fabric all in place and looking pretty, it was time to put down some mulch.  I've been using the Brown Earthgro mulch from Home Depot.  It generally runs for $2 to $4 a bag.   Each bag will cover about 3 square feet.  I used 7 bags for this project.

While I was shopping for the stuff I needed for this project, I found the cutest little wood border. It's called "Greenes Fence 3ft. wooden half log edging."   It comes in 3 foot strips with little metal stakes attached to hold it into the ground.  It costs about 8 bucks for every 3 feet, so it's not cheap, but it looks super cute.  I couldn't resist it.  I was 6' shy of what I needed and had to go back for more later in the day.

I spread out the mulch over the weedblock fabric, and then I took three bags of Vigoro white marble chip stones, and I spread those tightly around the edge of the pond.  These look way too clean and pretty by themselves, so I just put a bed of them on the bottom.  I bought 4 bags of river rock to put on top of the white marble chips.  The bags of stones all run about $3.50.

In this picture you can see how the river rocks give it a more natural look.

The next step was to add in some much larger stones that I had laying round the yard from previous projects.

I really liked how the larger stones look here.  I tossed the hose into the pond and began to fill it up.  I went back to the Home Depot for more of that cute little wooden border and decided to pick up some flowers too.  I  planted some tulips around the edge of the fence to give it some color.  I can't wait to see how it looks when they bloom.  

That night I got online and looked for some type of pump / filter / fountain contraption to put into the pond.  I found an awesome little solar powered pump / fountain for $16 on ebay.  What a bargain! It seemed too good to be true.  Well... it was.  it barely pumped at all, and it was completely clogged and broken in 2 days. 

So ... I got on amazon.com and found this guy:

Picture from Amazon.com

It's a Pondmaster PMK 190.  You have to say pondmaster in a Randy "Macho-Man" Savage voice.  It pumps, filters, and has a little fountain attachment.  I'll have to check the filter once in a while, but it works like a champ so far.

I also added a little chlorine floaty.  I don't intend to put any fish into the pond, and I don't want stuff growing in it, so i'm going to keep some chlorine in it.  I've hidden the cord to the pump under the mulch, and I plugged it into the power that runs the lighting that is hidden behind the shrubs.  The pond is right outside our den, so we can hear the fountain running if we open the windows.  It's pretty relaxing.

Next season, we'll expand this to take up that whole section of lawn inside the walkway there.  This was a little test run.  We're really pleased with the results so far.  We spent about $120 at Home Depot, which included some new work gloves, and then another $60 at Amazon.com for the pump/filter/fountain.  The project took about 8 hours start to finish.

Tami wants to add some decorations to hide the floaty a little and give it an even more natural look.  We'll update with pictures when we do it.

Live Well...Live Norman

P