Austin Pond Society

I started ponding in late 2009. I had several weeks off from work and decided to build a pond. We had a big area in the backyard that had no shade and where the lawn was always getting burnt by the sun. I had thought for a long time about building a pond and this was a perfect location to have one. It started with me using a garden hose to lay out a shape I was happy with. However, my wife had other ideas of it being bigger, so I willingly reshaped it. I built it all by hand with the occasional help from good friends over a few months’ time and then the waterfall area took another month or so to get finished.  I didn’t think about a skimmer or a bog when I first planned the pond, but once I learned about these things and their benefits, I designed them in. The skimmer was added after that, and lastly a bog was built to the side for extra filtering. The pond is also refilled when needed using 100% collected rainwater from 2700 gallons stored on our property.  

Our pond is accessible to get to and sits near the house in a flat backyard area. The pond requires very little maintenance and it stays pretty clear all by itself, with the occasional algae cleanup.  We have lots of pond plants, goldfish, frogs, and a few turtles. The goldfish are virtually self-supporting and don't need to be fed, but it is fun to do so. I never added koi because koi and plants don't always get along. A few lights add to the joy of sitting out at night to watch the fish swim around. Over the years we've had many visitors to the pond such as; snakes, egrets, herons, frogs, hawks, and large turtles. The two vegetable garden areas next to the pond complement the scenery perfectly. The waterfall is beautiful and gives the pond a great natural sound, the bog adds a nice extra dimension, and the several sitting spots are a nice place to relax. A large windmill next to the pond adds to the ambiance and the final landscaping feature is a large trellis behind the pond that supports a huge amount of trumpet vines with spectacular flowers from late spring to early fall.

I would really like the visitor to come and experience the serenity of our pond and to just enjoy the natural surroundings. Hopefully, the visitor will get a glimpse of "Stumpy", the resident 3-legged red slider, and take a tour of the large vegetable garden in the side yard. Funny story, the very first visitor to the pond was a good-sized frog, I noticed him because of his croaking. Then one day there was a large snake near the pond that I noticed had what looked to be the same frog in its mouth!  I chased after the snake, grabbed it and was able to get it to dislodge the frog who luckily appeared to be unharmed. We took the frog back to the pond and named him "Andy", in honor of a friend who helped with the building.