Pittsburgh Garden Experiment

An Illustrated Guide to the Birth of an Ecosystem

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The above view is looking out from my dining room window. It was important to me that this feature be viewable from the house.

It is hard to tell from this picture but I outlined the shape we had decided upon in spray paint. The first thing I did was dig out the sod around the outside to give myself a buffer to do more wreckless digging in the center.

Here you can see me continuing to remove shovel sized chunks of grass and soil. This was really the hardest part, though not the most nerve-racking. I didnt have a good idea of what to do with the dirt at this point so I made extra work for myself and Andrea by forcing us to deal with the material twice. 

Not much left to stand on at that point.

This picture has a few things going on in it. First of all, I had outlined what would be the deeper sections (18-26"), leaving a 1 foot ledge before the drop to deeper waters and a shallow (12") end. I am begining to dig out the deeper parts. The other thing that is important to notice are the hills of soil snaking along the outside of the pond in addition to the metal stud in the background. As I was digging out the pond I was using the removed material to level the surrounding ground. This is done so that when the liner is placed in the pond and the whole thing is filled, the water comes up to the same level all the way around the pool. I used the stud to bridge from one end to the other, adding soil as needed to bring the whole perimeter up to level.

Here I am adding a layer of padding in the form of fine playground sand to protect the liner from rocks or roots. I did my best to remove as much large debris from the walls and bottom but the sand really smoothed it all out.

I was in the pond intentionally, smoothing out wrinkles as it filled up with water from the hose, but I slipped, soaking myself. For this part I used several bigger rocks to hold the liner as I adjusted it and tried to smooth it out as well as I could.

Here you can see the pond finished with duckweed floating in it. The duckweed should be handy in removing excess nutrients and if it gets to thick, I will just scoop it out and toss it in the compost. I used the soil in the background to help regrade around the foundation of the house, which had been sloping the wrong way.

Here is another view of the finished pond.

 

The pond has already moved along. We have 3 water lilies, the duckweed, anacharis, hornwort and a few gold fish. In the week the pond has been in existance, I have already seen dragonflies and birds visiting. I am not going to use pumps or filters, just a good mix of plants, I want it to be natural, not just another point of consumption.

A pond like this provides a beautiful spot to sit and enjoy whatever may happen as well as diversifying the ecological possibilities of our yard. We now have a small water ecosystem with multiple depths that has a border of its own creating unique conditions for a variety of plants and animals. As always, there is more to do, but thats it for now.

 

• water
• garden
• pond
• fish