Congrats Sandy on the opportunity to teach your favorite hobby. When I was a newbie I would have liked to know was that if it rained for prolonged periods of time, and the pond was overflowing that this would not cause liner bubbling or damage the pond. I have seen a lot of posts over the years about this.

Next I would have liked to have known that Water gardens need to be cleaned either by filters or manually. I used to believe the whole "the pond is an ecosystem" and if you covered it with 70% plant coverage the pond would clear of algae and the oxygenating plants would provide all the oxygen your fish needed. This was the thought at the time I started water gardening and I think it may still be out there yet.

Regards,
Lisa

When we constructed ours the video described some of how to do shelving but the guy at the pond place put it simple, told us to break up our shelving do not do a shelve all the way around and it makes it look more natural. (it's true) And the video did not tell us that when putting in the skimmer that the height of the skimmer hole is how high your water will be.. simple right? well with all the overwhelming stuff we were learning when doing it.. that would have made it much simpler our pond could have been 6-8 inches deeper.. Don't know if that helps but it only takes a minute to explain and it might help someone??

Sandy good for you, you will do a great job!

I agree with Lisa, pond maintainability and the pond environment would be at the top of the list.

Filtration would be a must.

Winterizing, care of fish and plants a close follower.

Encouragement to seek out/read all the information on pond building , maintenance, fish, frogs and plants, before they even think about putting a spade in the ground.

Promote planning ahead, i.e. "don't wait until you are up to their knees in snow to think about venting your pond" or "get the leaves and junk out of the pond in the Fall. Don't wait until Spring when the pond is a toxic mess".
"Horton"

How about some information on plumbing the system? What's good to do (bottom drain), what should not be done, what can be done with it (feeding multiple features with one pump - waterfall and spitter fer ex), and/or flexibility when adding/removing components.

A printout with some graphical examples for common configurations would be nice, with a brief example and description of different components as a bonus if there is time.

Hi,
I think the most important thing is maintainence. Filters, cleaning, chemicals or not I think a lot of people do not understand how much and how important maintainence is to their pond until they are tired of doing and end up with a huge bloom and then drain it or ignore it. A good list of locally hardy plants would have been nice to know at the begining too but half my fun is figuring out how to keep the plants over the winter and waiting to see what made it in the spring. But I must admit if I had gone to a workshop I probably would not have set up the pond the way I have, I probably would not have tried to winter the fish outside and keep zone 6 plants through a zone 3 winter. Last I think it might be helpful to talk about the impact of the pond on the yard- leeching of chemicals or windblown chemical in the pond, the growth of the pond, you know it will get bigger, and the effect of the microclimate it creates. Hope this gives you some ideas

Thinking "through" the project. Ie; will the pond be an "end" item or part of the landscape and what might you want to add later. Example, my small preform became too samll for my Koi, so a larger 1,000g pond was added - had I located the preform 3 feet further frm the fenc i could have had a nice ared for my swing that would hve looked down onto the ponds, now I'm have to look up and can barely see into the pond.

Construction - bottom drain - I think that was my bigest mistake not having one.

MAINTENANCE, MAINTENANCE,. MAINTENANCE - think it throgh and then think it through again. Use the kiss PRINCIPLE - KEEP IT SIMPLE S-------. I have more places for debris to collect than I can count.

Acess - give yourself room to work all around the pond. too be able to get to the entire pond - it frustrates me too no end, on my knees stretching and having a hard time reaching the island planter, etc. (Yes, it was my fault in poor planning - that's the point)

FILTRATION - not sure you can ever have toooooooo much.

Supplies - keep a backup for your pump, and pipe and other equuipment repair parts. ie.: a hose intsert to splice a broken hose, or Pipe fittings for your pipe.

Ponding can be addictive - think ahead to be prepared.

Pump/filters - double what the manufacturer specs say -
pump flow is measured at the pump discharge
with no head loss

Sorry - that's more than enough.

McKool

Sandy, I hope we're more helpful this time! I'm sure you're going to do just ducky. Any of my pictures, feel free. Here's my two-cents-worth.

- Filtration, filtration, filtration.
- Bottom drain. To settling chamber.
- If possible, use a mild slope or make a mild slope, so the settling chamber (if they decide to have one) can be drained easily. Ours can't, the pond is level with the ground. Which makes the maintenance much more cumbersome.
- No, in a man-made backyard pond there is no natural balance. So you must maintain. You should make this as easy as possible on yourself.
- Using plants. And how the green mulm settles on them so-called oxygenators, and they really suffer from this.
- Using firm material for the pond walls, like concrete blocks. Ours looked firm, but when we got the Mother's Day Floods two years in a row, it turned out that the ground under the liner was quite moveable. And did it ever shift. We used concrete blocks for the settling chamber that we made later, and it holds up beautifully.

:) Mary

Can't think of anything much to add, but when talking about waterfalls, it might be good to talk about what kind they are thinking of, i.e. tall, long, 'white water rapids' vs a gentle trickle.
I was initially enthused to have a high volume falls but have since changed to a 'slow slider' which is more restful and relaxing...and doesn't create currents which disturb my lilies.

Sandy, tried sending you an e-mail...not sure if you received it or not. Whatever. Several years ago I gave a series of water gardening lectures all of which were on Powerpoint. As I indicated I've placed one of the Powerpoint presentations in an FTP file (at least I hope it's correct!). Hitting the link below will begin the download of this file. However, if is quite large; do NOT attempt to retrieve it if you are using standard modem service... you definitely want to be hooked up with broadband. Not sure if it will help you but it contains a series of "stuff" which seemed to be relevant at the time. Drop me an e-mail if you have any questions. This assumes that you can run a Power Point presentation on your computer. It was designed to be delivered in approximately 1 hour. With a bit of finagling it should be very easy to stretch it to two with questions. Plus I'm sure there is stuff that I didn't emphasize sufficiently as well as great ideas presented by others here that you might want to include. Have your speakers on for the last slide:-) Good luck. Teaching is fun!!!!
---David

Here is a link that might be useful: 2003 Power Point Presentation.

Hi
I think the most important thing is to decide WHAT the area will house. A Koi pond needs to be designed entirely different than a "Water garden" Since almost everything about it is "Optional" I see many water gardens in a dishpan lol. If you just want to keep plants even more options.Many people seem to prefer water features rather than gardens obviously entirely different.
So the builder MUST know what they want .. In your area
WINTER would be a big consideration. Right from the start they'd have to handle that situation and the various options in management.
Another aspect I seldom see anything written about is how rapidly most types of WP grow . So careful thought on which type of plants you want to keep. A Lotus pond can be built entirely different than a Lily pool but then again you do not have to have either one.lol
Certainly give a lot of thought to how much space for it in the landscape how will it fit in??
I always find it interesting that writeups give little thought to how nany chouces there are?? gary

David, you have mail. Thank you.

My thanks to all of you for the suggestions. Some of the ideas I had on my little list and others have been added or I am giving them thoughtful consideration. Any other thoughts are welcome, too. Sandy

Sandy, Terrific, and congratulations.
You have gotten a lot of good tips here...
I have one....Decide where in the yard that you want your pond to be and what shape you want.
Then lay out the pond shape with a bright garden hose.
Go inside and see how it looks from inside the house.
When we were planning our pond, we also planned on adding a 'pond viewing deck'. It is two levels, the bottom level
we made only about 15" off the ground, because any higher would block too much of the pond from inside.
It's nice to be able to see the pond from sitting inside the house, so if someone has a deck, they should consider going further out with the pond because the deck can obstruct the view.
good luck, Joann

Maybe since not everyone will have a big watergarden, you could also mention stocktanks/preforms/tubs. Some don't even need to be in the ground, nor do they need pumps/filters. I grow lotus and waterlilies and marginals in above-ground stocktanks every year without pumps or filters and they do great. You could talk about smaller watergardens and smaller pumps and smaller types of plants.
You could talk about the types of plants that are appropriate for near the watergardens, and/or the kinds of rocks to have around it.
I think alot of people like to start small (I mean really small), and would enjoy hearing about small preforms.
You could mention mosquito control. Mention that they may attract alot of loud frogs, snakes, and neighboring dogs.
If they live near a river or creek, they could attract otter, muskrats, beavers, etc.
The literature I would enjoy leaving your talk with would be names of plants and if they need sun or shade and depth of planting, a list of native plants, various watergardening terms and definitions,
fertilizers, pump sizes needed for pond size, names of some good books on watergardening, and maybe some handouts from your local ag extension on water plants, etc.
Good luck Sandy. I'm sure you'll do great!

P.S.
You might also mention how to elevate containers in the pond.......whether blocks, milkcrates, etc.

For me, the most important thing to know before starting any project is time and cost to properly build and maintain the finished product. Pictures of 100, 500, 1000, and 3000 gallon ponds and estimated cost of setup as seen along with time/cost required to maintain each size depending on whether it's just plants, goldfish or Koi stocked would be enough for me to figure out what I could realistically handle. Folks with their hearts set on koi might decide a smaller shubunkin-stocked pond would be just as enjoyable and a lot less work.

As for take home info-in addition to the cost of building and maintaining different sized ponds, the formula for calculating gallons in pond, formula for calculating cost to run pump, basic construction-cross-section diagram, minimal depth for wintering fish in your area, local reputable suppliers, and good websites would be useful. Websites with pictures of other ponds helped me plan mine-especially when it came to edging.

Hi Sandy,
I got your message about the web site but there was no email address to respond so I will do it this way. Other than the file being so large that it takes a long time to load if you don't have broadband, I haven't heard from anyone else that there is a problem. So.... I am assuming it is just on your end. Of course you know what assuming can do.
Anyhow thanks for the heads up and I wish you well with your workshop. I know with your knowledge you will help many newbies get started.
Charles

Here is a link that might be useful: Mann Made Ponds

Sandy,

Good luck on the class. I'm sure you'll help lots of people. Although they aren't "fish ponds" or "Watergardens", one thing I haven't seen mentioned are pondless waterfeatures. I think those are interesting.

How about the fish towers? Quite a few of us had fun with those last summer.

Oh, yes, if any of my pictures would be of use, by all means copy away.

Anne

Speaking from personal experience...

I should have paid more attention to making watertight connections. I will be redoing my settling tank and filter some point in the future when i run out of "great stuff" expanding foam. :-(

Sandy, I didn't read all posts, only yours at top, so if it has been said, ignore. But to me: controlling algae, the pond scum hairlike type :) Without chemicals if possible.
Nichole

Sandy, I hope you'll mention this great forum!