Once upon a time we had a pretty little pond garden that looked like this:
Then the big old poplar tree in it developed some kind of rot and had to be taken down before it fell down on the new neighbour’s brand new, custom built garden shed. Not only was it expensive to have done, it pretty much toasted the garden.
We kind of liked our little garden back there, and the hubby had put a patio in for us to sit on and enjoy the serenity. We even bought chairs specifically for sitting back there, but there didn’t seem to be much point when this was going to be our view:
So the hubby decided to rebuild the pond garden. He would make it bigger, stronger, better…And that is what he spent his summer doing.
First he built a proper retaining wall out of brick instead of wood. And as you can see, he also decided to repair the fence between us and the neighbour. The fence has been here since before we moved here, and we’ve been here for a very long time, so it was in desperate need of some TLC.
Once the wall was done it was time for a new pond. Our old one was pretty much just a piece of flexible liner sheet that fit over the hole the hubby had dug originally. It wasn’t all that deep, as ponds go, mainly because it was too hard to dig through the roots from the poplar tree. This is why we didn’t keep fish in it. Okay, we did have fish one year—friends gave us a bag of feeder fish, but we took them in for the winter. Then the following year the raccoons discovered them and had a sushi party.
The new pond is not only a proper hard plastic liner, it’s also a little bigger than the old one – both deeper and wider. I’m not sure if it’s quite deep enough for more fish, but it’s something to consider.
After that the pond was in place (ask him about chopping through the still present root system from the tree to make the hole bigger) he had a truckload of dirt dropped off and spent a couple of days back-filling the garden and setting up the pond. This is where you have to use your imagination to picture the garden filled with flowers.
Going forward, the stone patio is going to be expanded, and we’re going to have the firepit (that’s actually on a cement pad off to the right) in the center with the chairs around it.
Nice job, hubby! I’m actually looking forward to next summer. And here’s your reward:
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