Next we put the liner in, added some dirt, stones around the edge (these three steps are clear in the next photo) and planted some local water plants, especially cattails which are the most important plant for dealing with gray water. By the way, toilet water is called black water.
After filling it up the rest of the way with water, we waited to see what would transpire with the pond. There's one downspout draining into the pond from the roof of the house, visible above, top left. The gray water that goes into the pond comes from the kitchen sink, the laundry, and the bathtub. The pond got black and stinky and the reason for that was the plants weren't enough to deal with the situation. Stopping the laundry wash water from going into the pond fixed that problem.
All the gray water can be redirected into the septic if need be. There is a pipe hidden in the stones that feeds the gray water into the pond and also an exit drain pipe if the pond gets too full. So far this hasn't happened yet.
Fast forward to August. The pond is thriving and looks better and better. Soon after it's creation (I was surprised how soon!) frogs arrived. I wasn't going to introduce any myself because I didn't know how they'd do in the water. It's obvious they love it and do well as there were around 50 frogs before the pond disaster happened. It was "the thing" to go out to the pond and count frogs. Guess we don't have too much action in our neck of the woods!
You can see how beautiful the pond became in the following photos:
Things were going so well I thought I'd try letting the laundry wash cycle drain into the pond again and see what happened but then the mentioned disaster happened in the form of two visiting dogs that swam in the pond and devastated the plants. I never even thought of it because our dog has never tried to go in. I felt like crying! Look how the pond looks now:
Ugh. It's now four days later and the water is just starting to clear. I've redirected all the laundry into the septic and hopefully the kitchen sink and bath waters still going into the pond will be okay. I can only hope that the cattails will somehow start to come back but now there isn't much time before winter for them to get established. It would be way more complicated to plant new ones with the pond full and with all of the mud that's now in the bottom. I ain't goin' in there without hip waders! Today I transplanted some arrowheads and water lilies and sat beside the pond and counted the frogs. They're coming back into the pond now.
The long-range plan is to have what's called a swale come out of the pond and help water a future garden. In hindsight, I wish I would have made the edge more curvy to have created a more varied shape and more bays.
All in all, the whole gray water recycling pond has worked better than I expected and is a favourite hanging out spot for everyone.
Cool!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the summary of the ponds development. The pictures where an excellent chronicle and there was just the right number of them. Sad spot for a final picture. Always the next spring.
Do you think that part of the reason that the pond was so disrupted was that the bottom was grounded in a relatively thin layer of muck on top of a plastic seal? I imagine that the plants roots would have trouble deeply anchoring.
The thin layer of muck on top of plastic, the newly establishing pond, and two dogs in a tiny body of water all contributed to the disruption.
ReplyDeleteThe plants are slowly coming back and the frogs didn't take long to start moving back in. The pond, however, is having a hard time dealing with even the lesser input of gray water. I may have to stop the flow all together for a while sooner than I thought I'd have to due to winter.