Up River, Down River, Crocs Rule

More Gar River photos. These mostly show up and down the west side of the loop. The spillways are the white areas, those are plastic grates to keep fish in their respective ponds. On the upriver photo, with the plants obscuring the water in the foreground, to the right you can see how the pond loops around to the small stream like area, barely. I also included a so so, actually crummy photo of the crocgars ( hatchery created by mixing gator and shortnose gar).

are those willows (I think they're willows) growing out of pots?

The only visible plant in a pot is the cypress tree. There is one or two willows, but I think they are not visible in the pictures. I have what is called water willow, which is not a willow at all. These grow on their own.

Most of the plants I let grow loose, but have started using pots in mid depth water to facilitate bringing the fish in come winter. I drain the pond, and then can move the potted plants elsewhere while I easily scoop the fish out of the remaining basin. In the deepest holes I have no plants other than those that volunteer, except for some nuphar that I have growing loose weighted down to ease fall clean out.

Let me know which plant in which picture you are asking about, and I can better answer.

I've always admired your setup Ray, and now getting to see it in "life colors" it's even better!

Do you bring the cypress in during the winter? Casper has one from a cutting that's gonna take over the see-mint pond, and I know there are genotypes that are tolerant to southern IL. I've always wondered if they'd take it up here. I'm quite fond of them. But it would have to stay outside, so I don't want to bother anything if its not going to make it through.

Todd

Wow, if I ever win the lottery/powerball whatever, I'll pay you to come design and build something like that for me. Your whole setup always puts me in awe. Guess I should start buying lottery tickets

Awesome...Croc gar are looking real nice

Wow, if I ever win the lottery/powerball whatever, I'll pay you to come design and build something like that for me. Your whole setup always puts me in awe. Guess I should start buying lottery tickets

take what you would spend on lottery tickets and stick it in a mutual fund

trust me, you will come out a head

lottery's are a tax on the stupid

lottery's are a tax on the stupid

Then there's less tax for me to pay - let them buy lottery tickets!

I was looking at the first pic on the right. Now that I've looked at it again I think that's a pot.

Natural green water defendant

I'm sorry, I totally overlooked those pots set up to the left in the second picture. I just set them there for no reason and don't consider them part of the pond. That is a weeping willow in the one pot you can see most clearly, in the middle is a small shrub I am not sure what it is, and then a dormant buckeye - had it soaking in water to long during the drought after it dried out.

Cypress trees live fine to zone four according to things I have read. The one in the pot is a new addition I picked up this spring from a garden section of a small hardware store. I have another one in my bog that has been outside for five years. The only reason you cannot see it, mice, rabbits, or voles kept mowing it down under the snow in winter. I finally covered it with a cut off bottle for winter, then last year outside of winter a rabbit ate it down to the base. This year its doing much better and has a stump like a broom handle, but is only a twig a foot tall. Very bad way to make a bonsai I guess.

The pond itself is built on a shoestring budget. Lucky to have sand only soil here, which is easy to dig with a shovel. So making a hole in the ground is easy. The liner, most of it I got for free from a roofer I know, its used EPDM. I bought one section from Pondliners.com at a reasonable price.

Sand for substrate, sandstone and fieldstone, driftwood were all gotten for free as well. The plants, very few were ever boughten. The pumps and the skimmer along with the parts to make them work have to be boughten and are not on the cheap side. Lumber for the sides can be bought in the fall on clearance when places are taking down the landscape displays and shifting to winter sales on things displayed outdoors.

This pond was built in a series of additions and changes over the past ten years or so. Doing it all at once would be quite an undertaking even if I could line up all the deals I got over the years on things - cost would be high in a lump sum.

To do this on a low budget. Have a clear plan in mind. Check out as many ponds as you can find to get Ideas. Get a good Idea how the land slopes, so you can work with it to create water falls and such. Start with your lowest pond. One thing I would change is making the lowest pond very big, and have sides designed to look good even if water levels drop a lot. Since when water evaporates, leaks out because a water fall is plugged, whatever, the lower pond drops only. The side you plan to join to the next addition, leave the excess liner folded neatly underneath itself and cover with rocks. Then you will have a tab to either connect a pond on the same level, or over lap a water fall area, atleast enough stop most water loss.

The other reason for the lowest pond to be big, if your power goes out, the water from the upper ponds may flow back through lines that feed inlets, and flood the lower pond, draining the upper ponds down, and resulting in loss of water. I have a well, so water is pretty cheap, but still wasting water to over water the lawn around my pond is not a good thing. Check valves seem not to work well, probably get stuck from closeing because of stuff growing in the lines. Stand pipes can be built on the in flows to avoid this, still nice to have a basin pond that can absorb problems.

A place to put the ground you dug out of the hole for the pond.I had areas of the yard that needed leveling, and the low quality sand from deeper I just used behind the shed where I park my boat to raise up the ground, and hinder weed growth. I think those new laser levels might help in building the sides, but I just used the old sticks with string and a four foot level.