Saturday, September 15, 2012

Formal Pond Design


This pond was at New Orleans' famous Broussard's Restaurant.  I did not build it, just needed to make it work again after being a festering hole for years making their courtyard a not-so-nice place for dinner.  After installing and plumbing the bronze cranes, I added aquatic plants and tropicals to soften the look of bricks and make the space more inviting.  If customers wished, they could even sit on the sides of the pond and enjoy the subtle splash of the water coming from the cranes.  I changed the seasonal color with the seasons.


You will find this pond in the courtyard of Trinity Episcopal Church in New Orleans.  That huge vase-like structure in the middle leached lime to the point of starting stalactites into the pond.  Of course the water chemistry was so far off, plants would not grow.  I started adding vinegar by the gallon when the officials of the church would not redo or remove the vase.  Each week, I dropped by to add more vinegar.  Finally these plants grew and soon after, the pond was supporting water lilies and more.  It was a losing battle, but vinegar took care of the hugely high pH as long as I poured vinegar in it.  It smelled like the congregation was dying Easter eggs or was having Caesar salad after services each week.  
It was a beautiful structure, but never really successful as a pond because of poor materials.


Visit my website at pondlady.com.  Visit us with your pond questions or just to show off your pond.

To see more photos and get more ideas, read my book.

A Practical Guide to Building and Maintaining your Pond, available here http://ow.ly/btFJQ
Learn to build your own pond.

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