Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Pictures of progress on Tom's pond

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These pictures are for soliciting help, hints, advice, recommendations, and anything else from the forum. I asked a few questions of my own on the thread "in the beginning." Plans are to dam this hollow and provide a nice pond for fish, waterfowl, wildlife and a few humans. Please feel free to offer any word of assistance, like "what you would have done if you had it to start over again?"
Tom

Here goes another question: Near the shallower back part of the pond, I notice where there is a runoff ditch. I have a picture of the area posted. I will take more pictures once we have done more work around it. There is also a small brook nearby that is fed by a spring, but also is another substantial source of runoff as well after a significant rain of 1-2 inches in a brief storm. How can I best control the silt that will be carried with this? I read on this site about digging holes, drain tiles and rocks. Where should I dig these holes to catch silt? And how long should I make the drain tiles? Do I take them all the way into the pond? SHould these be concrete, or can I use corregated heavy duty plastic? Thanks for help so far.

After looking at your pictures It looks like you have an excellent location for a pond. I can only think of one possible problem that might occur and that would be for the pond to leak. I would make sure that they do a deep trench across the creek with that track hoe and make sure they get rid of any gravel that would keep the pond from holding water. Your best friend against siltation is vegetation and if you want to keep things looking natural it can't be beat. Try not to allow any of your soil to become barren that is above the pond. Choose plants that have deep roots that can withstand a lot of water during a flood and plant them in the dry creek bottom. I have several large cottonwoods in the creek bottom above my pond that trap an enormous amount of sand when it rains. Something else you might do is to put any large boulders that are dug up during construction in the creek bottom abouve the pond. You are going to have a beautiful pond!

Once again great photos Pondsea. You can almost smell the wetgrass. And the last photo of the young lad having fun, jeez, brings back memories. Give a kid a stick and some mud and you've pretty much made their day.

I would suggest (or perhaps a moderator will help) that you create one construction thread. That way the progress on the pond will be preserved chronologically.

Keep posting photos and questions/comments. I'll let the guru's answer your questions.

Thanks for the tip Jeff. I will keep all photos of progress on this thread. James, I am glad you mention the cottonwoods in the dry creekbed. That got me to thinking about the brook that flows into this pond. Since it comes out of the woods it has a lot of trees growing along it, both mature and small. It has very low banks as it exits a springhead, but just before it enters the pasture in the photos, its banks are high from erosion over who knows how long. probably about 3' deep. As we ran elevations, it seems a good possibility that when the pond is full, the water will back up into this little brook a bit and flood the banks about a foot deep or so, especially during heavy rain events. But it may subside and just remain somewhat "marshy" when the pond may not be as full during the dry season. I guess my question is whether I should clean out this area since it will standing in water at times. Will it be a problem to leave the trees standing in this area? Some are growing in the creek bed also and some in low lying areas above the banks. By the way, I do not have any issues with beavers at present since this is mostly uplands, not river bottoms. Hopefully, if I build it, they will not come. But my concern is more with siltation issues. Any advice?

At least a 100' buffer strip of bermuda grass in place of the channel will just about eliminate any silt washing in. It looked like you have lots of good topsoil you could spread in the area to insure a good stand of grass. Smoothing the edges and adding 10-12" rock would do great as well if you have really deep pockets.

SURE IS PRETTY!!!

Another thought. That earthmover could strip out the higher areas around the 3' cutout area and put it in the pond as sunken islands.

Personally, unless there is an astetic or danger factor to consider, I would leave most of the trees alone in that area. Standing or falling, they will make tremendous source for stucture and habitat.