Pocket water gardens can make nice addition to the traditional garden
After two years of maintenance gardening, this was finally the summer of the water feature. During our tenure in New York a decade ago, my husband got into pond gardening big time with a large multi-tiered water feature and a smaller Japanese-fixture garden. Turns out as we continue to work on our ‘pond’ here in Petoskey, we are discovering that ‘huge’ is not what makes a water garden a great addition to the yard.
In the Southwest, we turned grandma’s old 25 gallon pickle crock into a ‘pond garden’, fish sanctuary populated with rescue feeder fish from the pet store. Here we settled on a modest 40 gallon in-ground pond with a sculpted bottom and deep end to make water lilies possible. Around it we installed a brick patio and a rock surround of broken limestone-cement flagstones.
Add five rescue feeder goldfish who are learning to use their freedom to school and interact with us at feeding time, the results are instant fun. We did not want, however, to install a big mosquito breeder. The fish and three pond plants should keep insect population in bounds.
While we can open our bedroom window or walk our decks and hear the Bear River rushing down below, we love the intimate murmurs produced by a small solar pump in that tiny patio garden. The mini pump came with a spraying fountain which threw too much random water outside the pond. Solution was a clear flex-tube attached to the pump instead---passing almost unnoticed between slabs of the flag stone to create a mini waterfall. The contours of the rock actually split the stream of water adding realism.
Several water plants provide cover for the fish and also conceal the solar pump and tubing. One is a floating tropical variety from the pet store. The other two are surprising given there is no pond nursery in the area. Both are in the papyrus family—one whimsically named ‘Baby Moses in a Basket’—and are available at a local greenhouse-nursery.
Second night out in the yard and the pond had a visitor from what was likely a raccoon. No harm done and with our motion sensor ‘deer squirter’ now once in operation, there has only been one minor animal incursion since.
Bottom line, with imagination, even the smallest space lacking an electrical outlet for a pump can become a tiny pocket water garden. Most special was seeing my former ‘non-gardening’ spouse using the project as an excuse actually to expand his train garden bed to accommodate several new bushes and a handful of flowering perennials.
And to top it off, he proudly gardens bare-handed. All reminders that gardening is a highly personal form of self-expression limited only by the power of imagination. And there’s still a lot of summer left to give your garden fantasy a try.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Pocket water gardens can make nice addition to the traditional garden
