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lisa October 26th, 2007

I liked my water barrel so much that I decided to put in a pond! I got a pretty cheap second-hand liner (~260 gallons) from a guy on Craigslist and proceeded to dig. Siting it was difficult - it’s going to be a garden pond rather than a fish pond, so I needed to put it in an area with good sun exposure, but at the same time I didn’t want to encroach on possible future veggie garden areas. I also needed to leave some room for the annual plant sale staging, which happens on my property every May.

In the end, I placed it next to the new driveway at the far side of the veggie garden. It was one of the few open areas left without a lot of tree roots, but close enough to the driveway that I knew I wouldn’t put veggies there. It’s still pretty shaded in that spot - gets maybe 4 hours of sun - but we expect to be cutting down some of the trees that are currently shading it, so it won’t be so shady forever.

Digging the hole was really hard - trying to get it deep enough in the right spots took forever. If I ever do this again, I’ll use a piece of flexible liner rather than a pre-formed liner.

Eventually I got the hole dug, then backfilled and put compost around the edges so I could plant some chamomile and clover seeds. Filled it with water and added a variegated sweet flag, a mint, and some water hyacinth. The mint was just a typical mint plant, not a water mint, and it didn’t do very well. Eventually I moved the plants from the water barrel garden — blue corkscrew rush (Juncus inflexus ‘Afro’), lizard’s tail (Saururus cernuus), and chameleon plant (Houttuynia cordata) — over to the pond, since they’ll be happier there over the winter (actually, I think I have to bury one or two of them). I also found a floating solar water fountain on eBay, which has a battery and a light at night that’s quite nice. The solar panel is as much in the light as I can get it for now. The fountain only runs for a few hours a day, but hopefully that will be enough to keep the water from being too stagnant.

Haven’t seen any frogs yet, but the birds and squirrels seem to like it! Next year I plan to add some cattails and American lotus, and maybe some arrowhead.

• Water gardening
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lisa June 19th, 2007

I’ve been wanting to make a water feature for a while now, but being a thrifty soul, I was looking for an inexpensive method. Here’s what I ended up doing.

First, I took a plastic half-barrel planter that someone gave me for free a few years ago, and measured the drainage holes that were in the bottom. I picked up some rubber hole plugs from the hardware store (something like these) for about 75 cents each, and pounded them into the holes. One of the holes was leaking a bit, so I used silicone sealant around that one.

Then I made sure that the barrel held water by filling it up and letting it sit for a week. I added 1/4 of a mosquito dunk to keep the skeeters from breeding there.

Today, I visited New England Nurseries and got a few water plants. The barrel is now planted with three perennial aquatics and an annual water hyacinth…

The copper piece is a rain chain that my mother gave me a couple of years ago and that I absolutely love. Unfortunately, the welding is really crappy and it keeps falling apart, which is appalling considering how much it cost. Mark keeps soldering it back together for me, but I’m getting pretty fed up with the whole thing. I’m thinking about trying a different system to connect the lily pieces…

PS This site has some other ideas for half-barrel water features.

• Water gardening
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