Hi everyone, I am From Canada and my wife and I own a piece of land in Quebec where we are building our retirement dream project.
We bought this land as a clean slate, it was a forest!, we have worked on it for 3 years now, building our cottage (Well, this is a 3 car garage with a 2 bedroom apartment on top) This spring, we are digging our pond!
Then, closer to retirement, we want to build our house facing the lake!
See attached pics to give you an idea of our project. (measurement are in meters, multiply by 3.3 to be in feet!!)
I was thinking of putting in a small sand beach area... anybody tried this? any advices? I was thinking a gentle slope where de beach will be an dumping sand over it... will the sand stay there or will all end up in the bottom of the pond over time?
Any how, I just got the city permit do dig, and all excited!!!
I have read a bit and seem that its the place to be to talk about ponds!!
Another welcome. Your "cottage" looks like a palace to me. I live in a trailer which is not much more than an old fashion bread tin but plenty good for me. As far as a beach goes, I put in a small one (about 25' wide). I have lost some sand to deeper water but the pond is 10 yrs old and there is plenty of beach left. A 5 to 1 slope puts you standing in 5' of water at 25' from the waterline. In my opinion a beach is a great addition to a pond. On a very hot day it is nice to be in chin deep water without having to put out any effort or using a flotation device. Also a whole different little niche for lots of things. Research beach building, there are ways of preventing the sand from shifting. Think EVERYTHING through thoroughly and do lots and of lots of research. Good luck and keep us informed of your progress. Take tons of pics. Guy named Bretski did a similar project and documented it very nicely. Perhaps someone will post the thread, definitely good info for you.
Do nature a favor, spay/neuter your pets and any weird friends or relatives.
When you create a sand or pea gravel beach for swimming in a pond be prepared for a lot of work to keep it clean. All sorts of weeds will want to grow in the material above the water line. Underwater filamentous algae and submerged weeds will constantly want to invade the area. It will take chemicals or frequent manual labor to keep plant growth minimized.
The other big problem is what I discussed in one of the threads noted below - development of black anoxic sediments. The way beaches on lakes stay relatively clean is the periodic heavy, strong wave action thrashes the beach area to keep the upper layer oxygenated and fairly clean. This strong wave action does not happen in a pond thus the only prevention of the sand area from becoming black and anoxic is occasional mechanical mixing such as raking the beach area. Children frequently playing in the beach area also helps. Thus, keep the beach area no bigger than what you want to manually rake it 3-5 times a year. Development of anoxic sediments requires several years to develop buy when established, it is very labor intensive to rid the anoxic conditions.
Carl, Welcome to Pond Boss...tons of good info and lots of good helpful folks here. Other than a beach, what are the goals for your pond with regards to fish? I assume you are going to stock your body of water... Charlie
I will. I want to be able tu use it for entertaining (swim) and fishing. I am not sure what kind of fish yet, the only I know as far as fishing is trout and I like them (eat) so I will do some research in due time. Right now, like everyone, is finger crossed for having enough water and that it will hold up!!!
I also bought a windmill for aeration. I always wanted one as they look nice, but I taught nowadays they were only decorative! Now that I found they can actually serve a purpose, I didn't hesitate!
I would also like to skate on it in the winter... bu the aerator make the water to not freeze, so I'm considering removing it for the winter. I am planning to have a portion of the pound to be 15' fo the fish to survive... any advice on this is welcome!
I would like to have some cattail and white or yellow water lily.
I am reading that they are very invasive. I was planning into having some isolated shallow area for them.
Any advices?
Get some hybrid water lily's. They come in red, yellow, and orange. We have all three colours. I learned from folks on this site that you should plant them in rubber made totes with their own dirt. They will not expand passed the tote but will grow into a very nice mass.
The pictures added are only three bins with three different colours in them. The one picture shows them just by the log on the shore. This was their growth the second year.
Cheers Don.
EDIT: we have learned that muskrat love lily pads. They were set back last year because of 11 rats that made our pond their home for a few weeks.
We kept moving them out in the summer as the water went down. I have them wintering in about 6-7 feet of water. I am 5'11" and when swimming up to them I can get my toes on the lip of the totes with my head above water.
The tote was well fertilized with every green sticks when we planted them. Basically done nothing to them since they were placed but enjoy their colours and watch the dragon flys on them.
Great stuff. I remember our start. We didn't tell the neighbors and we had 4 acres of top soil scraped back the first day. Everyone thought we were building a great big new shop for my company. When it was all done they thought I was nuts then when it was full of water and completely landscaped they were shocked at how nice it finished.
Good luck and the only and most important advice I can give is if you build up the banks or build up any clay to hold the water at a higher level then the undisturbed dirt use a sheeps foot roller ot pack the clay as you build up the bank and use the vibrator. The bank will hold water right away and not take 3-4 years to season in and hold water. We just used the dozers tracks to pack and grade our banks and should have packed with a sheeps foot to get it to hold right away.
The water lilies will do better if you buy dwarf and or small spread varieties and plant them in your shallow area. Most lilies will eventually escape the pots when potbound. Hybrid, not wild, esp the small variety lilies will spread very slowly in compacted pond dirt.