Bbrigs, I didn't take it as an attack, I just wanted to explain why I think it's the most important thing you can do when building a big pond. When we built our pond ten years ago we included a bottom drain, only because the salesman explained the premise behind it. We have a gravity fed system and had one filter tub the first year, the second year we added a second and third filter tub. Then I wanted a small pond adjoining our rose garden, so Cliff took this idea and made the small pond a biological pond for the big pond. It it eighteen feet away from the main pond and after the water leaves the three filter tubs that are daisy chained together it travels 18 feet underground and spills into the biological pond. The water then travels through the bio pond getting scrubbed by all the vegetation in there then exits the bio pond, travels back underground and spills into the main pond from under the small wood dock in back of the main pond. Then we added a skimmer under the wood dock to catch all the surface leaves etc. We only use the skimmer in spring and fall. We have been talking about daisy chaining another tub or two to the existing system, but so far we've been managing with what we have. You are absolutely right bbrigs when you say a good filtration system is essentially, my point is to start with the bottom drain, then you can add more filtration, bio and mechanical, you can make the pond bigger (we did that as well --two times) you can add a skimmer, more waterfalls, etc...all this can be done after. That's is what I mean when I say the BD the single most important thing you can do for your pond, start there and everything else can be made bigger and better and more efficient later on. Rose, We have a lot of fish, about 10 large koi, 3 large orfes, 2 goldfish and several medium koi that are off springs of our koi. Here is a link that might be useful: Pond plans and diagrams.

I used to have a triangular raised bed edged with stone. The south/SW edge was the raised section since the bed was built on a slight slope. The other two sides were edged by brick walkways and bricks. Along the rock edge I had a couple of different thymes. One creeping variety overflowed on the walkway and despite the shallow root system did fine here in NH. But the quality of my soil and the amount of sun was not as good as I have now. You might find a 4x3' bed is too small if you have full sun. When we first moved to our present house I made an herb bed along a walkway but it probably only got 4 hours of sun. Things did fine but after renovations were done I moved the culinary herbs to a bed around our small kitchen porch. Each small clump became huge clumps in a single season. My sage is probably about 3' in diameter. The tri-color sage isn't reliably hardy here so it has stayed small.

I've been pondering on how to replace the raised beds that I'm currently taking out; the lumber is rotten, and...I guess inhabited by a colony of carpenter ants. Not in a hurry to put any new wood back there. I thought about making new raised beds out of concrete block, but decided that was yukky. (heavy, could be spendy) I'm not ready to commit to anything very permanent anyway, so for this year...my plan is to make temporary raised beds out of the hardwire fencing I've been using to compost. When the texture of the compost gets so fine that it falls out of the wire cage, I line the bins with landscaping fabric, and attach it with zip ties. With the raised beds, my plan is to cut the fabric into strips...to whatever depth I need the dirt to be. I can use lenths of rebar to stake the fencing in place, without bulging too much. Could plant directly in the ground around the bins on the south and west side, to protect them from direct sunlight, to keep the soil cooler. Keeping potted plants there might work too. I'd keep the north and east sides clear, so there's a place to walk...need access with the wheelbarrow, and so on. For composting, I make round bins... But there's no reason they couldn't be bent into rectangles, or whatever shape is needed. When I empty one, I just flip it over and step on it to make it flat again. They slide right under my deck for easy storage. When I bring home a new load of mulch, pine straw, leaves, or whatever...I bend them back into a circle - takes a few minutes. I yank them off the hot piles all the time, dump the contents back in - its a fast way to flip the piles, those bins are easy to move around, very handy. Mine have a green coating, which blends right into the landscape when they are empty. I often run into them when they are like that, I can't even see them... but with landcape fabric around them, navigation is much safer. My roll of fence is 5'feet tall, but its easy to cut with wire cutter...very customizable. I like this idea, because it leaves plenty of options open. At the end of the season, I could pull the bins up...rake everything level, and plant a cover crop there. Could leave them in place, move them over... and ammend the soil when it goes back in. To extend the growing season a little, one might slide lengths of flexible pvc over the rebar to make hoops... cover the whole thing with 6mm plastic, make a mini greenhouse. I'm going to try making double walled bins, and stuff the resulting 'wall' between them with a layer of straw. That should keep the soil cooler in the summer, warmer during the winter. (I'm talking myself into this as I go...can you tell?) The disclaimer is...I don't really know if any of this will work in practice, but it sounds good in theory. Sounds like David has been doing something similar, and he's saying his dirt didn't freeze last winter? That encourages me even more... Maybe the best part, the materials are cheap! In my case, FREE...since I've got everything here already. It might cost me a new roll of landscape fabric, but thats nothing compared to what it would cost to build new beds out of redwood or cedar. Composite, even more spendy. No major committment from me is required, since its all temporary. If I want to try something different next year, I can just flip them over, step on them, and slide them under the deck. And the ants can't set up huge colonies in them, which is always a bonus. Speaking of carving out huge colonies, I better get to sleep if I want to work on this tomorrow. There's snow in the forecast, so there's extra work to do before it shows up. Brick by brick...weather permitting. Leslie in CO

I've used the recycled plastic "lumber" for a flower garden in my front yard, where it was important that it look good. It's neat, easy to work with, the corners are nicely rounded, you can't get splinters from it, and there's no risk of termites. My raised bed could outlast the house. The kind I got is grey, the same color most wood decking turns when it's weathered a year or two. Since I have grey trim on the house, it looks fine, and I think it would be fairly unobtrusive with most color schemes. I believe there are brands that come in other colors, like dark brown. The main problem with it is the expense, but given that it will outlast anything, including cedar, I think it's worth it, at least for places where appearance is important.