I am constantly tinkering with my ponds! I am planning some filter upgrades soon for two of the ponds (all DIY of course). I decided in the fall after cleaning my creek that there had to be an easier way. The creek flows out of the lily pond (which is being converted to a longfin pond), down the hill and into a recirculation barrel. It collects SO much sludge over the course of a year. Cleaning it is a nightmare! So I decided to add a couple of clean-out drains in the bottom in a couple of spots. And since the liner is out anyway, I might as well make the top pool of the creek big enough for goldfish to live. well, two weekends later, the top pool of the creek is now about 600 gallons!! The new liner arrived yesterday. I ended up digging 45 feet of trench for the drain line and had to order a bigger liner. The water will be running in the creek by the weekend!! YAY!! now.....what else can I "remodel"???

From the picture it appears you have no aeration in the pond. There are a wide variety of aerators on the market but you should consider sub-surface aeration. As a previous poster has mentioned, you have years of accumulated muck in this pond. As the algae blooms shown in the picture die, they will drop to the bottom and provide more nutrients in the pond, fueling additional algae and weed growth. Aeration allows naturally occurring bacteria to start to get rid of this decomposing material. In order to speed the process you should also consider adding bacteria. You can reduce the muck level by up to 5" per year with the proper bacterial formulation. You can make the pond clearer by using a flocculant. This binds excess nutrients in the water, drops them to the bottom, allowing the supplemental bacteria to get rid of these nutrients. Once you start treating the pond with natural products, you will start to see a clearer, less algae filled, clean smelling pond.

Dorothy, I know exactly what you mean about wanting it to look natural and fit in. Unfortunately, no matter how much planning you do, it's probably going to looked "plunked down" for a while, until the plantings fill in and it gets that settled look. In a year or two it will be better than you ever expected... People have given great ideas already, but I would agree with the suggestions to take your time and look at every pond/water garden magazine, book, website and tour you possibly can. And take any advise Cliff and Joann have to offer--one look at the pics of their pond and you'll see why. Missa7's idea about water coming up out of the ground is one that we used when building our pond. I didn't want any pipes, etc. showing (even in the winter when there wasn't any plant cover) and I didn't think water pouring out from under a pile of rocks would look natural either. Those were some of the reasons we decided to put in a bog-type gravel filter (shown below). It's not very visable, but the hollow log on the right side of the photo is where the intake hose for the bog is. The water flows up through the gravel and overflows into our big pond via both a stream and a small waterfall. We were lucky in that we actually have a bit of a slope in our middle-of-kansas yard so we didn't have to pile up dirt to make a waterfall. Below are two pictures of ponds that I think do a great job of adding waterfalls "gracefully" in what looks like relatively flat terrain. I have no idea whose ponds they are, but I wish I did so I could go visit! :-) Have fun coming up with ideas! Sherry

Thanks for the update buyorsell888! Putting out a zine is a real undertaking and very time demanding depending upon the period of release, be it monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, or yearly. Also the industry has never really been THAT strongly based since much of the interest may be either tentative or wavering. I think that the main reason why is that the expense of putting in a water garden and maintaining it is just too much for the level of income and time available for those who really would be interested. That is one reason I have always hoped to see some kind of inexpensive preform package that was relatively care-free but not to be. Too many parties wanting to exploit whatever market there is to sell product that may be good but may not be necessary. If someone had the time it would not be difficult to set up an online zine geared towards hobbyists interested in low cost ponding. I would suggest making use of Photobucket and creating pages entirely as jpegs. I am sure if anyone had the time to cordinate the site and edit that different submissions could be included. Just some thoughts.