There are plenty of trees in the area, it's pretty heavily wooded. I was more concerned with the size of a couple of these trees. They're just huge. Probably 20 feet around and I was concerned if we just dug around the roots and filled the pond that they'd die and years down the road become a possible hazard for falling branches.
This is going to depend mainly on your terrain... If you have to dig most of your pond or if you can simply dam it and flood. I have over an acre of flooded "forest" in my pond for example.
There probably isn't enough room to establish a "large" grass buffer strip so that's why I was asking if a smallish dirt/clay barrier would suffice.
I'm willing to bet Otto will be along pretty soon to throw in some advice on this. He's the expert on this stuff. I will say that you'll want to take measure to prevent silting from the cropland (to the extent it can be accomplished).
That's what concerns me. Should we hit a spring, what should I look for to determine if it's detrimental or not? And if it is more of a drain than a faucet, can it be "plugged" in any way?
Again, a great question for Otto.
So you mean dig around some trees in the pond or just throw some cut ones back in? With the guy I have doing the digging, I don't know how much finesse he's going to use so I don't know how well he'll leave behind some trees for me. I was probably going to keep a few of the uprooted trees and toss them back in for some natural cover.
I don't believe you could dig around the trees and expect them to remain standing for too long. Your idea of using some of the uprooted trees for structure is a good one. However, if you end up being able to flood some of the tree area, without digging, to a depth of 6-10 feet at expected full pool, some of those trees, in my opnion, would be wisely left in the pond.
Any plans would be awesome. I happen to work for a company that can supply me with plenty of plastic drums.
According to my research, one 55 gallon drum displaces roughly 450 pounds of water. Here is the one link I could find. I'll post more if I can dig them up. I've been thinking about building one of these myself.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070917142345AALAyNtYeah, I meant swimming area. Got fishing on the brain. Pea Rock. I'll mark that down.
Pea rock will give you a similar look, and it's friendly on your feet. I think you'll have less issue with it washing away versus sand. I plan to add a small "beach" area to my pond next year, and pea rock is the plan. I also intend to dig a small ledge, put down some heavy duty landscape fabric (or other very durable material... maybe EPDM) and then fill with pea rock. My hope is that this will help to keep the pea rock where I want it and reduce weed issues.
