Minimizing your Garden Work with Garden Ponds and Old Stuff

By garden lover Ruth Logan Herne who is absolutely lying, this isn't really minimizing anything, but the effects are gorgeous! And so fun, and perfect for the fairy houses we're adding to the "farm" this year so our young visitors will have ONE MORE CRAZY FUN THING to do!

I love garden ponds. Small garden ponds attract birds, frogs, toads and fairies.The sound of gurgling water, that isn't from leaking pipes, is so calming. It's like sitting by a waterfall without having to get into the car.

Who can possibly object to that????

So to have garden ponds in the north, they must go through winter.

And to have them in the northeast woodlands, they must deal with leaves and tree clutter.

And to have leaves and STUFF sit in water all winter is gross.... in the spring. But even if you drain the ponds, rain and snow are going to fill them back up and leaves will fall: Fact of nature. But the joy is in getting them cleaned out each spring (I use the word joy loosely, darlings) because it's a yucky job, but once it's done... it's done!

This was the first pond we did, and it's not level.... so I learned that a pond should be fairly level but it hasn't leaked in 20 years, so I'm not messing with it. :) And finding small fountains for small ponds is tricky but I want the water aerated and churned so avoid mosquitoes, so I have a "gurgling" fountain which is about as basic as you can get.

This pond was formed with our inexpertise and old vinyl fabric I used for an underlay and pricey pond liner. Which.... as I said... hasn't leaked in 20 years, so it pays to get the good stuff. And, the less sun the liner gets, the better. We (by we, of course I mean "I") layer field rocks around the edges to avoid the sun beating on those edges and rotting them.  This one is about 28" deep at the deep end and then about 14" deep in the shallow end. I've got all kinds of irises, including Japanese water irises around the ponds because they look lush. Even when the flowers are done, hostas and irises look lush.

Then this is the waterfall that was buried beneath English ivy and poison ivy for years...

 Link to Garden Pond Video at Ruthy's House

I do not want to tell you how much herbicide it took to finally regain control of this yard when the ivies paired up and made it insurpassable. I don't even know if that's a word, but I'm using it. I've got two pics here so you can see how I built it.... The lower pond has a strong pump the sends water up a two-inch hose and then it pours out over the 'waterfall' and back to the pond below. This is all hand-done, and frogs and toads and birds love it. And the little stone sidewalk is from free stone that the country club pulled out and my son brought it home to me. There's more out  back of the house, and hopefully this year I'll turn that pile of stone into a patio-type area so that the dogs aren't quite so muddy when they come in. :) A girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.

 You can see Grandma Blodgett's Gold-and-Burgundy irises that I've propagated for years and given gazillion away. They match the house! :)  But I like a kaleidoscope of colors, too, so there's also this:

A Blue Iris.... It is so tricky to find blue flowers. They are uncommon, so I've propogated this guy multiple times because I love it!
And this:

That's an old soup pot we found at a garage sale. It makes a great county planter! And this old ash bucket:

You know how expensive it is to get planter arrangements at the nursery, so we find old things and make our own. Mandy (my wonderful niece/pseudo daughter) roots coleus and sweet potato vine for us every year... this year they met with a sun scorch accident, but they're coming along! Where there's life, there's hope, right? I buy six packs of the bigger flowers on purpose (the 4" pots) because with a short growing season, I want color to take hold in June and last until September.... and then the mums show off their beauty.

And this water garden came from a kit my kids gave me about a dozen years ago and it sat for several years until I was able to get rid of at least most of the poison ivy in this section of yard.... It abuts a marsh (my frogs and toads!) and the poison ivy is a constant battle because it crawls east... and we're east of the marsh. This one has a pump in the lower pond that feeds through a buried tube to the upper pond... and when it's full, the spillway water fall channels the water back to the lower pond where it all repeats. When we had the rotting porch pillars replaced nine years ago (book three!!!) we had electricity installed on this porch at the same time, and all for the ponds and Christmas displays. :) I have staked electrical ports near each pond and then the cord runs to the porch electric box. And I don't run them all the time.... but a few hours/day to keep the water fresh and critters happy.

And that's a glimpse of how to keep a perennial garden and water gardens looking sweet without laying out a lot of cash.  Each year we do a little of this and a little of that... this year the fairy houses will be new. I think the kids that visit the farm in the fall will love finding fairy houses!!!

And that's it from Blodgett Family Farm where I planted 2108 pumpkin seeds today.... and there will be more tomorrow. Because it all begins in the spring!

Multi-published author Ruth Logan Herne loves to get her hands dirty and avoid poison ivy and write beautiful stories of faith, hope and love. Both jobs provide therapy which keeps her from doing
bodily harm to unsuspecting persons.  Find her on facebook, email her at loganherne@gmail.com, follow the farm on facebook at Blodgett Family Farm and you can check out her website at ruthloganherne.com....