Unveiling the Water Garden

* as always, click on the pics for a larger view.




This year, the watergarden wintered under piles and piles of leaves. In this pic it has been partially blown off, so you can see the structure that Hubby builds over the pond to keep it from freezing. It's mostly 2x4's, with a pair of hinged windows, covered all around with tarps, and then heaped with leaves. We pipe air in under the stream all winter, from the basement where the furnace is. Warmest room in the house!


Last weekend, Hubby had stripped off all the winter paraphanalia, and started the stream. We quickly had a 10 gal/day leak. With a pond that only holds 150 gallons, that would get problematic. There were only two places the leak could be: under the stream(in the plastic under the stones), or the pipe that returns the water. So, we started stripping back the stone, to get at the plastic.

Five years will allow alot of muck to build up, and this stream needed a good scooping out.

While Hubby went to the garden store to get new plastic and hose, I mucked out the stream, and stripped it down to the underlayment. It was soft sand, lined with foam rubber (you can also use old carpet, just to keep the plastic from being punctured).





Funny, we didn't find any leaks under the plastic. Must have been the hose.












The new plastic arrived, and we got busy putting the
stream back together. Hubby decided the old purple plastic was good to go under the new black layer. More protection couldn't hurt.


We put the new hose in a new more accessible track, and started arranging stones to cover the plastic. The new flex hose is sticking out of the waterfall in the pic to the right. We went from 1/2" to 3/4" hose, so we could get 50% more flow.




Nearly finished here. Lots more detail work, but the main stones are in. *Whew* All that stone! My fingerprints are worn off. It took me a couple of days before I was moving again.






Finis!
The fish are happy.