Beside the Stream

I did some research on making a native garden pond, and came up with a list of directions. 

1. Remove goldfish
2. Line pond with rocks
3. Transplant five species of native waterplants from local waterways
4. Add minnows from local waterways
5. Add waterfall
6. Wait.

Now that the goldfish are gone, I’m ready to start reconfiguring the pond.

I don’t like these rocks: the pond would be nicer with plants growing over the edge.  Bob pointed out that there won’t be anything growing this fall, and I might as well leave the pond intact until spring.  But I’d like to line the pond with rocks as well.  This would increase the underwater surface area in the pond quite a lot, creating more living space and more hiding places.  So much for leaving it until spring–Bob was gone for two days and it happened.

This is the first iteration, and I can see from this photo that I should use smaller stones on the shelf.

Here is the second iteration.  The pond will look a lot better as soon as it’s surrounded by groundcover… but that’s cosmetic.  The next step for a healthy native water pond is: transplant a total of five different species of local water plants into the pond.