Thanks, Bill, for all those specific suggestions!
My pond surface is around 2000 square feet. Half of that is devoted to the swimming area. I have no experience with water lilies, and would like to plant a sufficient number to ring the swimming area and remove nutrients without overwhelming the pond. I have no idea of the "coverage" or "size" that water lilies grow. We will have no fish at all at first; we'll only add them back in (as you suggest above) if/when the insects become a problem. (Lucky for us, we have bats that eat larvae and adult bugs, so mosquitoes have never been an issue here for us.)
Our current plan is to start with circulation generated by two airstones driven by a windmill. I know that you're not in favor of windmills, but we'd already ordered the mill before we read that, so this is our path for now. IF we don't get adequate circulation next summer, we'll plan to bite the bullet and add electricity out near the pond and a circulating pump, unless you or anyone else here know of a pump that can run off of a Marine deep-cell battery array powered by solar?
Finding about exactly what plants have been used in natural swimming pools is not so easy to research on the 'net as you might imagine! I think those that build them for a living guard that information, maybe. If you know of any resources, please post them! I'm a due diligence kind of gal!
