A Pond: Part 1

So this happened a few weekends ago...We added a pond.  It's part Birthday present and part Mother's Day present.

Here is what the area looked like before.  As you can see, we already had bought the stock tank.  Actually, we bought it last June I think.  It sat all summer and then all winter.  Finally we got out there and made it happen.

After clearing the area, I laid some half cinder blocks to use as sort of a base for the tank.  After some finagling, I got them all level.  It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be.  Somehow this seemed like it would be the hardest part of the project. (Fun fact, it wasn't even close)

Then we added edging and started some soil preparations.  This was definitely not as easy as leveling the tank.  Since we were working with some existing edging, it was a long process to get them to fit in the right amount of space.  After five or six tries of shifting the blocks one way, then switching the curves, and shifting them another way, , stopping for lunch, and then starting all over again, we FINALLY made it work out. 

The soil preparation was a bit of a struggle too.  The previous owners had a love affair with landscape fabric and lava rock.  I'm talking a serious love affair.  This area was particularly loved.  The fabric gets all tangled in the tiller and really causes a lot of headaches.  After we removed all of the garbage, because that's what decades old landscape fabric is, from the area, I ended up need to remove a lot of tree roots.  One of the drawbacks to this part of the garden is the fig tree and it's impressive root system.

We tend to horde plants, so we were able to plant up the area with stuff we had around already. We did end up buying an iris for the area and some millkweed to go in near the wheel barrow planter.  Since I had spent forever and a day working on the soil, it was easy to plant everything.

The planting is a mix of tropicals and some daylilies and a few perennials that needed a home.  A tropical milkweed has been added to the purple-blue ceramic pot and two other native types will be planted next to it.  It sort of mirrors the Tropical Garden around the pool.

At this point, the weekend was over and the work came to an end.  I hate it when work gets in the way of my hobbies and gardening fun!  I'll share how we wrapped up the project in part 2 later this week.