But, perhaps a local pond club could give you some local knowledge about comparables in your area.
Really, I can think of so many enjoyable reasons to having a pond. I’ll be interested in reading your updates.
This pond has a black pond liner under it, but I think after a while you would not even see it as the pond life develops and natural sediment builds up.
I live in Maine if you’re wondering about the climate. Also, you said earlier that manually aerating and agitating the pond would be a lot of work, but I think I would do that anyway because in my mind, stick + water + movement = fun! :D
I’ll try to post a photo or two of the finished pond, so keep posting so that the topic doesn’t lock.
Yes, I can see the fun factors, but it might get to be too much in the summer. this pond guy suggested using a bucket or plastic pitcher to scoop up water and pouring it back from a height of 2-3 feet to several times over to manually aerate and oxygenate the water. Which also sounds kind of fun if one has the bandwidth to do it every few hours.
But, honestly, he just meant it as a stop gap measure until I could get the water fall fixed.
I have a heavy-duty plastic pool that’s about 8 feet by 6 feet by 2 feet deep. It’s sunk into the ground and one day, when there’s time (HA), I’ll finish putting stones around the edge to hide the plastic (but the native-plant garden I planted around it is doing a good job of hiding the plastic). I do not have a pump or filter. I do have lots of plants - a small water lily and two big tubs of blue flag iris in the middle, plus marsh marigold, pickerelweed and bog bean in tubs on the ledges around two edges of the pool. (The bog bean is taking over the world, which does not break my heart.)
I don’t notice any mosquito larvae, probably because three to six Green Frogs and Bullfrogs rapidly moved in. Spring Peepers bred in it last year (maybe they did this year too, but I didn’t notice). Gray Foxes drink from it (I bet the deer, squirrels, etc., do, too, but I have photo evidence of the foxes.) Several species of damselflies hang around; they probably breed in the pool, too.
All in all, I’d call it a success. Yes, there’s some algae in the height of summer, but the more of the water surface you can cover with water lily pads (or bog bean, in my case), the less algae you’ll have. Plus, algae counts as biodiversity, right?
It was lawn beforehand, so clearly an improvement in the environmental sense.
You will end up making choices between a ‘natural’ pond and one that only looks natural. Your water source - will be municipal not natural? Something like a vernal pond - dry and dormant in summer, or is yours a winter frozen climate? If, you have water plants, they grow FAST - and you will have to corral them somehow … in a pot? We have a ‘spitting frog’ to circulate the water. Summer heat needs a deeper part for pond life to retreat to cool depths. A sloping beach so everyone can get a drink, and get out again. Ours is 8 years old
My water source is from a well near the house, so not municipal. Winter is very frozen in Maine (annual average low temp ~-17º F). I understand that water plants grow quickly, and would accept a marsh if I need to. I know about the deeper part, and love the idea. Thanks for all that!
About clay, I have been told that you need a layer at least 50 cm thick, else it tends to crack and lose water. So that’s some extra work and material…
I have large dragonflies laying eggs every year, their larvae eat tadpoles and frogs eggs, but I still have mosquitoes…
Adult amphibians come and go, and a lot of birds and mammals come to drink and bath when the weather is hot and dry.
Thank you! By “temporary pond”, do you mean vernal pool/seasonal wetland/one-of-those-snowmelt-ditches-that-evaporate-in-the-summer’s-heat-and-salamanders-love?
Much of the advice should differ depending on what your climate is. Saying you live in Maine is probably helpful to Americans but not to some of us. How much rainfall do you get and does it exceed evaporation? And how is your rain distributed through the year? Do you get long hot dry summers? I live in Britain where we get rain every month in normal years though droughts seem to be getting more frequent, overall rainfall exceeds evaporation and 25 C is a hot day, so my experience is biased to these conditions.
Pumps. Is the pump for filtration or aeration? Or both? To be honest, fitting a pump is quite a deviation from natural. You really shouldn’t need one unless you are keeping a very unnatural community of wildlife in your pond. If the water is like pea soup, you haven’t got enough filter-feeding invertebrates such as Daphnia, which may mean you have too many predators, usually fish. If you need to oxygenate with a pump, you are trying to keep animals which would not naturally occur in the pond.
I agree a plastic liner is unpleasant. Rigid plastic is better than flexible sheeting. The fact it needs a liner shows it isn’t the place for a natural pond. But natural is a sliding scale and I’d say concrete, as it mimics rock, is more natural than plastic but concrete is liable to crack. Clay would be closest to natural, but your plant roots may go through it and cause leaks.
The mosquito question depends very much on your location. Here mosquitoes are early colonists of any ponds and tanks but not really a problem. We don’t have mosquito-borne diseases, yet. I think you would need a high density of Odonata larvae to control mosquito larvae. Fish would be better but see point 1 - fish might prefer to eat the Daphnia. Also, mosquito larvae are filter feeders so will help keep the water clear.
4 Marsh marigold (assuming you mean Caltha palustris) does fine in full sun here. I don’t know about in Maine.
Yes, if water lilies will grow in it at all, I would expect them to quickly dominate. But easy to control in a pond that size and the floating leaves should help keep the water cool in sunny weather.
Diving beetles will arrive very soon, days if not hours. Snails need transporting to it, so if you are keeping it natural you need visits from ducks. If you are stocking it with water plants, snails will probably be in them. If you are buying in the water plants, the snails will probably be alien species.
Only native plants. Well, you might have difficulty enforcing that one, especially if you are buying them in. Non-native Lemnaceae are likely to be in the mix.
If you don’t want the plants to be growing in pots or in soil at the bottom of the pond, what are they going to grow in? Or are you just wanting free-floating plants? Waterlilies and Typha have root systems. One of the weaknesses of these artificial ponds set in dry terrain is they lack the marshy margins which have their own suite of species as well as being the pupation habitat for many of the aquatic insects. Plants in pots of soil that break the water surface can substitute to some extent for the lack of marshy margins.
Lately, the weather has been extremely unpredictable. This year it was mostly normal (Cold winter, hot summer, heavy rain (1 to 3 inches) about every two to three weeks), but last year it rained almost every day, and the year before that, there was a drought. I imagine this will only get worse in the coming years or decades.
Then I look forward to making diving beetle observations.
I don’t really see that happening if I order bare-root plants.
The more I read about cattails, the more I see that they might not be a great option for a small pond. Does anyone have any suggestions for less aggressive plants native to the eastern United States that could take their place?
if one has the bandwidth to do it every few hours.