Back to Gardening Chapter 4, Design - Part D: A Tale of Three Ponds (con't)

In this section of Chapter 4, I share my lessons learned from ponds I've made in my backyard, and then I summarize all the ways that ponds are good for gardens.

Back to Gardening Chapter 4, Design - Part D: A Tale of Three Ponds (con't)

Pond 2

In 2022 I decided to address a drainage problem that I had in my garden by making a new pond to collect water, combined with perforated drain pipes to guide the water in and take the overflow away. This pond was much smaller than Pond 1, but I made it quite deep at the center, such that is was roughly 6’ in diameter and 6’ deep relative to grade. It’s ability to collect water was fantastic, and it would fill quickly with every rain.

A series of French drain-styled trenches would guide water in on the left - and the drain pipe on the right would take the overflow (in heavy rains) downhill and out of the garden.

I was very aggressive with the vegetation surrounding this pond. I carved out the sides on a slope so that things could be grown up the sides, then I went around to the ditches on my street, and dug up everything I saw that looked like it wanted to grow near water, and planted those things along the slopes of the pond by pinning them into the soil with little pointy sticks.

I have to say, this little pond was lovely.

Lesson 10: Plants that grow along the sides and at the bottom of ditches make ideal perennial pond plants - and they cost nothing!

Amazingly, in a very short amount of time most of the plants established themselves. Indeed, by the end of the summer the pond looked like it had always been there, and it was teeming with life. Unfortunately the life was the problem.