Backyard pond notes - summer 2003

The Editor

The Home & Garden Section

The San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco, CA

To the Editor:

Your recent story, "Thing big when you put in a pond"

(The Chronicle, July 9) was interesting, but I beg to

differ on a couple of the author's points. A backyard

pond does not have to be big or expensive.

About two years ago, I dug out a 5'x8'x2.5'

oblong-shaped hole in my backyard (and used the

excavated soil to create a nice 5'x6'x1' raised

planter bed at the same time), lined it with two

layers of synthetic pond fabrics: an underlayer and

the main plastic/vinyl liner for about $75. The two

sheets were about 14'x14', as I recall. You can use

any sort of flat stones to hold down the edges of the

liner. There are several good books on ponds and their

construction available at most any city library.

I filled my new pond with tap water from the hose and

awaited Mother Nature's donations. Pretty skimpy the

first year: only two aquatic insects: mosquito larvae

and an unidentified small rectangular black insect. A

year ago in the spring I added some Water Hyacinths (a

few dollars each) Duckweeds (free: begged a cupful

from a local nursery). These two water plants are

tough, easy-to-grow and will multiply rapidly.

Free Mosquito Fish (Gambusia affinis) are available

from your local county Mosquito Abatement District

(your tax dollars at work!). Before adding fish to

your pond, the water needs to be chemically treated to

neutralize the chloramines present.

This spring I had a very large bloom of stringy

algae, so I finally decided to purchase a couple of

Mystery Snails (Viviparidae spp.). They seemed to have

been dead on arrival, for they never moved at all.

However, several days later, some tiny blackish snails

appeared in the pond. I decided that these must have

been some local native Pond Snails (Lymnaea spp.) and

not related to the Mystery Snails. Who knows?

The Water Hyacinths and the Duckweeds have basically

covered almost the entire surface of the pond. The

Mosquito Fish swim around happily, so you can easily

have a small, inexpensive and low maintenance backyard

pond. Last summer the vinyl liner cracked in one place

where it was both folded and exposed to the sun; this

lowered the maximum depth to about one and a half

feet.

Yours truly,

James K. Sayre

11 July 2003