The 'pond post' — most popular, by a long shot!

Nymphaea 'Clyde Ikins'

I'm embarrassed to admit I only recently discovered this blog's most popular post, to-date, is one I added last summer. It's a post titled, "How to make an above-ground pond." You can click on the link to read it.

Now, while I'm happy it has attracted a lot of traffic to my blog (which means perhaps it has been helpful to folks), "how-tos" are not my favorite type of writing. They're difficult, step-by-step directions on how to do something very specific.

But I'm grinning while I write this because the joke is on me. While I check the SEO statistics periodically, the point of this blog is not to make money or to draw a huge audience (although either would be nice). The "pond post" has garnered more than double the site traffic of the next most-popular post, "A terrarium for every room" (another how-to).

I delayed reporting on the success of the pond until we made it through the winter. Now that we've hit July, I guess it's safe to report on the survivors: four goldfish and a Water Lily.



They made it through a "normal" winter for my area, which included plenty of subzero (below 0 F, or below -17.8 C) days. During the coldest winter days and nights, the pond maintained a water temperature around 50 F, thanks to a de-icer and an insulating cover. We removed the cover and turned off the de-icer sometime in April. We slowly weaned the fish onto wheat germ spring/fall food, and then, in mid-May, onto regular summer pellets.

Sometime during the month of May, we thought we'd lost them. A pair of mallard ducks tried to make the pond their swimming hole, but we chased them away. Then we didn't see the fish for at least 24 hours! But those goldfish were smart--they'd hidden under the internal pond structures (crates, PVC piping) included for that purpose.



In early June, the Water Lily's first bud of the season shot up toward the surface, and it's now blooming! Several others are close behind.

Some readers have requested information on the materials costs. Here are the fishman's estimates--although these will vary widely, based on locale, store, promotional sales, and other factors:

  $48 –16 - 8’ pieces CCA (arsenic-free) treated 2” x 4”* lumber

  $27 – 1 - 4’ x 8’ sheet of ½” CCA (arsenic-free) treated plywood (for pond bottom and interior)

  $10 – Styrofoam sheet insulation (bagged garage-door insulation; for pond wall voids and for on top of bottom plywood)

  $12 – Coated screws (2 boxes)

    $8 – Stainless-steel staples (for affixing pond liner to pond-wall top plates)

  $16 – 2 - 8’ pieces of 1” x 6”* cedar decking (for top trim)

  $42 – 3 packages of cedar tongue-in-groove wall-siding (for outer walls)

  $12 – 3 - 8’ pieces of cedar 1” x 3”* (for outer trim)

  $15 – 3 - 8’ pieces of cedar 1” x 4”* (for outer trim)

  $60 – Pond liner, pump, fountain attachments & tubing (got an open-box deal; would usually be about $120)

  $30 – Box filter & filter media

  $12 – Black plastic crates (for use as planting platforms; large milk-crate sized one also used to house filter)

    $8 – Dark gray porcelain tiles (to weight down crates, form surface for plant baskets)

    $9 – Various plastic pond-plant baskets

  $10 – Three bags of pea gravel

$319 – TOTAL (without fish & plants)

* Lumber measurements are standard nominal dimensions.
Note: This estimate does not cover the cost of the insulating cover.

Sometime during the fall, I'll write a post about "How to prepare an above-ground pond for a cold winter." Until then, I'm enjoying the aesthetics of the fishman's creation.