The Watergarden Journey

We started out with a 60 gallon, preformed plastic pond. No filtration, no aeration, just water, two goldfish, and several water plants....No idea what i was doing, either! But, the 2 goldfish turned into 7 by the end of the season, so apparently somebody was happy with the conditions! Of course, the fish were feeder fish, and i got them with the idea that i'd just let them die in the winter or throw them away (they were FEEDER fish, after all!), but, animal person that i am, i just couldn't, so instead, they spent the winter in an aquarium! Had this little pond for about 3 years, then got the itch to have a "real" watergarden, one that the fish could stay in all year, so, in 2001, hubby and i took a free watergarden class at a local shop, and jumped in head first, to coin a phrase!

We took one week of vacation to work on it - of course, it was the only 95 degree (F) week we had that summer! Just the two of us....when someone asks my husband what he dug the hole with, he always says, "With my wife!" Well, HE thinks it's funny... ):}

In a way, it developed a life of it's own, deciding what size and depth it would ultimately be, and when we were finished digging (mainly because we decided we'd had enough!), it was an 11' X 20' oval, 24 inches deep.
Anyway, it definitely turned out beautiful, and now i have another environment to grow plants in - water! All of the plants surrounding the pond were just moved or divided from those i already had, and all of the fieldstone around it came from hubby's grandparents' farm - hauled in one pickup truck load at a time! We have various types of fish - Koi, Goldfish, and Rosey Reds, and it's visited by a large number of American Toads every Spring, almost always around April 15, except we usually have warm weather by then, and it doesn't look promising so far, so Toad Day may be delayed this year! More about THEM when they show up...
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