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| ~Thank you~ for visiting!!! ~~Please sign my guestbook~~ Happy Gardening, Gale |
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| Pond Pics |
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| Garden Page |
| Special Thanks to: |
| Flower Pics |
| These are pics of the POND and WOODLAND STREAM while under construction............ |
| THE POND 1997 |
| CONSTRUCTION PICS |
| We took the easy way out and hired our neighbour with a backhoe to come dig the hole. It measures 10 ft. wide X 16 ft. long X 2 ft. deep. What took only an hour & $60.00 would have taken Steve ALOT LONGER, not to mention a sore back and muscles! He did however, dig the planting shelves around 3 sides of the pond. The side closest to the patio was left as a drop-off. |
| Filling the pond for the first time. |
| I did not take pictures of the rocks Steve and I picked....but we filled the truck until the springs could take as much weight as they could....his poor truck was sagging! We had to pay the Indian Band of Mount McKay only $20.00 for a rock picking permit. We had to dig around a bit to find the large ones for the waterfall, but it was well worth it! The kids picked a few small ones, but lost interest pretty quickly! I'm not sure what was more work..loading them onto the truck or UNLOADING them onto the lawn after we returned home. It was a 3 hour labour of love for the pond. (not sure if Steve loved it..but I did!) |
| Testing Steve's waterfall...he got it flowing perfectly the first attempt of arranging the rocks....AMAZING! Good thing...as those rocks were HEAVY!! |
| THE WOODLAND STREAM 2001 |
| Fortunately, Steve owns a 4x4 truck with a winch, so this is what he used to move the huge boulders into place. The ones he could manage on his own, were rolled into place. (believe me, not too far from where they landed from off the dump truck)! |
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| Now the rest of the pile was up to ME!!! Order a load of soil, locate the shovel and wheelbarrow, then.... ~ let the games BEGIN ~ |
| I managed to get the kids to help me on a rare occasion, and their job was to collect the smallest stones and throw them in a plastic tote. These were to be used to line the stream after liner was layed.. Our dog MISTY RIVER was willing to help everytime I went to work on the stream. She barked endlessly at me to throw some rocks her way! Now if THAT isn't annoying, I don't know what is....... |
| Laying the liner |
| During the fall of 2000, a nearby highway was under reconstruction, blasting the rock cut and hauling away the huge boulders. "What a waste" I thought. Fortunately for me, my neighbour was the foreman on the construction site, so I phoned to ask if he could get one of his dump trucks to drop a load of the rocks in my yard. He said they were HUGE boulders and weren't good for anything, but I pleaded with him that I wanted them to build a rock garden. The evening they were dumped in the yard, Steve shook his head, rolled his eyes and asked "what the H*** are you going to do with THAT?" "Don't worry" I replied..."you gonna see"....... So the following spring, I set my mind to construct a rock garden with the 3 tons of boulders sitting on my lawn. As the rock garden began to evolve, I imagined a little woodland stream with waterfall flowing through it. Since it was along the bush line of our property, I envisioned it as as nature would intend it and wanted it to look like it was there forever. At this point, Steve said, "do whatever you want, but I'm only moving those big rocks ONCE. You better know what you're doing!" |
| Since I had the large pond on the front lawn, I did not want another pond by the stream, so Steve's brother graciously gave us a 250 gallon water holding tank he was not using. This was placed in a 4ft. X 4 ft. hole Steve ALMOST dug in the ground at the end of the stream. He got down 3 ft. and hit a HUGE boulder underground. A quick phonecall to the backhoe operater and it was taken care of! I also got the backhoe to extend a flowerbed along the house too, since he was there! A pump was placed in the tank, and this feeds the waterfall and recirculates the water through the stream. Steve will build a log bridge to hide the water tank this year. |
| Rock garden and stream ready for planting..... |
| NEW PICS Streambed 2002 |
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| Closeup of the small waterfall. It certainly attracts many species of birds to bathe in. This has become my favourite spot to sit & relax. I love to watch how much they enjoy their new "bird bath!" |
| Stream & waterfall with a few plantings. These were added late summer 2001 and several more will be added this year. |
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| My FAVOURITE Hangout |
| Click on the links below for more pages |
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| Holding Tank |
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| This is a small extension to give the appearance that the stream flows under the bridge (when added) It also has pond liner and holds standing water that I just add from the garden hose |
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| The plants are nicely filling in. The ones planted last fall grew great and I added several new ones this summer. I'm hoping they all double in size next year, so the soil is barely visible! |
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| NEW PICS 2002 |
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| ODDS & ENDS |