Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Good news

Got a Call Saturday,
The local Xmas tree farm called and said I can have all their extra trees at the end of the year. He said be their the day after Xmas they usually have around 100 they burn and chip.. Sounds like I'll be doin some Xmas tree structures next year..

Update: Got probably 20-25 Christmas trees all shapes and sizes.. I plan on putting these in the pond this spring.. I'm gonna mix some in with my artificial structures and put some in deep water I think..

Some of the ideas I've been throwing around..


First I was thinking of getting a decent sized tire, use a hole saw to cut 4 holes opposite of each other feed steel fence post through them since I have 100's of them. Place 1 to 4 trees kinda in a leaning stance and possibly one sticking straight up in the middle. Fill the tire with concrete.. These will probably weigh over 100 lbs and will be very bulky but I think they'll make excellent standing structure..

Another idea was stacking pallets 2 or 3 deep.. Cut holes through the first one or two pallets and feed the trees down in them after trimming off the first foot or so of branches.. I figur I could place one tree on each corner and this would be kind of double structure with the trees and pallets. As far as weighing these down I'd just attach 2-3 bags of concrete in the middle of the pallet. Sink them with the concrete dry the water soaks through the bag and it setsup under water no mess with mixing..

Also I would do a couple of the pole ideas I think Esshup showed me.. And I would do a few trees with cinder blocks and kinda mix them in with the PVC structures I already put out.

tip; keep the hole well away from the tire perimeter to avoid hitting any portion of steel cords...bad news

Hole saw won't cut through those?

imagine a bundled cable (many smaller cables bundled and wrapped into a larger cable)
then lay a bunch of them side by side
now put a toothed hole saw to them for a quick and clean cut
(been there, done that...it sux)

You got any recommendations? Sawzall?

I found a couple ways on the computer.. Basically drill a starter hole and cut with a jigsaw with medium tooth blade seems to work the best.. Thanks alot or the info I wouldn't have thought of that until my wrist was snapped from holding on to a runaway drill

too much messin' around
Stick with your plan, but keep the hole saw OD about 1-1/2" min from the OD of the tire. You'll get a feel for the location when you start. Believe me...you'll know if you hit the steel cords pretty quickly after you start the hole. Just move it down a bit to miss them.