Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 11, 1994 TAG: 9403140095
SECTION: LAWN & GARDEN PAGE: 10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
So she did the job herself, and for her pond liner, she chose something unusual: an old cast iron bathtub.
Her property adjoins the lake, and the earth is almost solid clay, she said. Luckily, she chose to sink the tub in an existing flower bed, which made the job easier, for the first few inches, at least.
But she was never quite pleased with the effect. The water "looked bad" inside the white tub, she said. Most pond liners are black, so the water will reflect the surrounding plants.
"It was a joke," she said. So when her koi and goldfish began to outgrow her makeshift pond, she pulled the heavy old thing out of the ground, and built a smaller pond on the site, using a flexible liner she bought from a mail-order company.
"It was not cheap," she said, but it still wasn't enough.
A year after it was in, she called Norman Tharpe of Tharpe Landscaping Co. He specializes in building waterfalls and natural-looking creekbeds, and also was willing to work with what she already had.
He built an upper pond into an existing stone retaining wall, added a waterfall, and then dug a creek to the original pond. He built a stone patio around the creek and put a large flagstone across it as a bridge. There are two pumps to keep the water circulating in both ponds.
Richardson and Tharpe collaborated on the plants. Richardson has tried to use native plants around the rocks of the waterfall to create a more natural look, but she also has water lilies, both the hardy and tropical varieties, water hyacinths, which grow so fast they are considered nuisance plants in their native areas, and a stand of cattails.
Including the plants, the project cost around $4,000. The rock used to create the waterfall accounted for $300 of that amount, she said. "The more money you have, the more you can do."
The project took about a week to finish, Richardson said, and placing the rocks was the most time-consuming job.
"He drove me crazy placing those little rocks here," Richardson said about Tharpe, but the effort was worth it to make the waterfall flow properly into the creek.
Richardson does the yearly maintenance on the pond herself, but it's nice to have Tharpe around to fix any problems that might come up, she said. The liner itself, Tharpe said, comes with a 35-year guarantee.
"Those things are tough," Richardson agreed.
"You get what you pay for," Tharpe added.
When her fish inexplicably got sick and began to die last year, Tharpe also helped her figure out that a workman had accidentally dropped an acid-tainted rag into the water and contaminated it.
For most of the winter, she let her pumps run, only shutting them off during the coldest weather. The pond never froze completely, she said, and she and her family could see the fish moving around under the ice.
The koi, which have been bred as pets for centuries in Japan, will come up and take food out of her fingers, she said.
Richardson said that although the pond was her idea, her husband and children enjoy it, too. "It's relaxing being near the water, the flowers and the fish."
She and her husband, George, are the owners of Invisible Fencing of Southwestern Virginia, and they work out of their home. The pond is clearly visible from the office window, Richardson said, and in good weather she eats her lunch outside next to it.
The only drawback to the water garden is trying to keep kids and pets out of it. Her own children know to stay away, but once, some of their guests rearranged the rocks Tharpe had so carefully placed.
To keep the family dog, a retriever with a natural urge to catch fish, away from the pond, the Richardsons simply installed some of their invisible fencing around the perimeter. It triggers a receiver on the dog's collar, which warns her not to get too close.
But "the good parts outweigh the drawbacks," Richardson said.
Richardson is typical of many water-garden owners, Tharpe said, in that as her fish population grows, she wants more and more room for them. So although the most recent additions to the garden are fairly new, Richardson has changes in mind already. Later this year, the creek bed will be widened to an hourglass shape, and a new wooden bridge will be built over it.
"It's something you get addicted to," she said. "It becomes a hobby."
by CNB