The Water Garden (Fancy Name For A Pond)
After admiring the gardens and
backyard fishponds of some of our friends and family, we finally decided in May
2001 to try it ourselves.
I will tell you up front that I am
NOT an expert on this subject. I was not a gardener. I had never grown anything
more than a decent patch of weeds. Nor was I into fish. I have never even owned
the obligatory childhood goldfish bowl.
To be honest, the whole idea of gardening was (and still is) somewhat daunting. Whenever I talked with a gardener, it seemed like there was so much that one needs to know about plants, fertilizers, insects, soil, pruning, planting, phases of the moon and who knows what else.
However, I decided that flowers and plants have been growing forever
without any help from human experts and if I stuck a few of them in my yard they
might just survive even if I didn’t know what I was doing.
I have always enjoyed spending summer afternoons and evenings sitting in my back yard and watching the birds and squirrels feasting at my feeders. Besides, I have a fairly good sized yard just growing grass that I have to cut. So I thought, “Why not?”
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What follows is my experience and
lessons learned in installing a pond and garden in my back yard.
It is in no way meant to be an authorative guide on ponds. There is a lot
of much more experienced and expert advice available than I could possibly
provide.
All in all, it was (and is) a wonderful experience. I never dreamed that my wife and I would enjoy it so much. I wish we had done it years ago.