Pond with Flagstone Waterfall Hello - I'm a big fan of the McArthur Water gardens web-site, newsletter, and Q&A with Carolyn.  I'm also impressed by your large selection of equipment as well as the prices. My pond was originally built in the mid 50's by an elderly resident, who built at least 15 ponds in our community (we are a planned sanctuary community for native plants and wildlife that was founded over 60 years ago). The ponds were basic kidney shaped, concrete shell, about 18" deep and fed with a trickling artesian wells. There was a drain system to regulate the flow of water back into the earth. When I purchased the house in 1997, I loved the pond, as I had designed and built a Koi Pond 5 years earlier at my last house. This "new pond" was much different though. It was aged, very overgrown with large tropical landscaping. The pond itself had years of composted matter on the bottom, but was teaming with wildlife. Frogs, snakes, bugs, turtles, mosquito fish and a native water lily that covered the entire surface of the pond were long-time residents. The pond was a regular stop for local raccoons and birds. After the 3 hurricanes of 2004, my landscape was basically trashed. We turned off the water to the pond and let it dry up and  sit until we could get to it. We moved all the landscaping to other areas and removed all the trash and sediment down to the concrete shell. After viewing the basic structure we decided to start fresh. We ripped out the concrete shell and used the broken concrete to form a new waterfall base. We fined tuned the shape of the pond, increasing the size to 12" x 24" and the depth to 42" at it's deepest. There are several levels of "plant shelves". The water fall base is 10' x 16' x 4'. If my calculations are correct, I figure I have about 5,500 gallons. The pond and waterfall base are lined with PVC liner. My filtration system is the "Large" Aquascape Skimmer, 1/4 hp Sequence external pump with leaf basket, and a pressurized "Pondmaster" filter system with plastic media. It is all enclosed at the rear of the fall in a cabinet that doubles as a potting bench. Future plans include an arbor over the "potting" area. After filtration, water is diverted to three pools at the top of the falls and follows rock streams that meet at the main fall. I used NC River boulders, large chunks of golden flagstone, and lots of river pebbles and stones. Total rock weight so far is 5 tons. The ponds edge is also set with the same combination of rock. This project has taken over a year to complete. It started as a cleaning and grew from there. The pond's edge is 6 ft away from an existing screen porch where we now spend many hours enjoying the fruits of our labor. We also have the area lit with an extensive low-voltage lighting system. Our next project is to build a "pond house" with a spa and fire pit at the ponds edge. As with our last pond -- we found that they are always a "work in progress" but I guess that is why we like being "pondmasters" so much. Attached are recent pictures of our pond. After a little more fine tuning to the rock, we plan to start stocking the pond with Koi this weekend. We plan to add 4 at a time, every four months or so. I hope that you will consider our pond for you're pond of the month. Hopefully I didn't bore you with too many details, but we are proud of what we have created. Thanks Gary Hayes Oliver Hersloff Melbourne, FL   =========================================== Want to see your pond featured here?  Send us one or two of your best pond pictures and we'll add them to the gallery.  pondpics@macarthurwatergardens.com =========================================== Back to Galleria Index - Click Here