We are in the design phase of our pond. We have a large area to work with. (4 acres) We have a natural drainage area that begins at our house and ends at the mouth of our pond. The water that flows into the current hole come from a 3" under ground pipe that collects the water from the house roof and upper field. When it rains hard or a couple of days the hole (8'W x 25'L x 5'D )fills up. But after the rain it drains within a couple hours. My question is: Should I put a divert Y into this pipe so that I can divert the rain water around the pond ? Or can it let it flow into the pond and build a spillway at the other end ? Whats best ?
Hi there Bill. We have a resident pond expert here on our forums Pondlady and I'm sure she'll be along shortly to help you out. Meanwhile WELCOME to GardenStew and I hope you'll stay with us as we're a friendly bunch who love getting to know new people. :-D
Hi Bill. I think I would build the spillway into the pond. It makes use of the naturally occuring water. The only caveat is how much/many pesticides, pollutants are you near. If you are near a golf course or a major highway, a farm where crops are dusted, by all means do not let any runoff into you pond. Divert all the run off water past the pond and into rain garden that you will build and plant. I shall put instructions on rain gardens in my today's blog here on gardenstew. BTW, welcome, glad to have you aboard.
Glad to have you join us Bill.We are a friendly bunch here at the Stew.Love getting to know new people.
There is nothing close to the pond to be concerned with contamination. Our only concern is the large amount of water that would come into the pond. Would is cause the pond to flush it's self out ?
If you built a weir at the lowest end, you could keep as much water in the pond as you wished. Only the top water would run off, so I think you would be OK.
had a old hot tub we'd thought about making into a water garden cause we thought we'd never get it sold,finally got it sold,for room for a pergola.but the idea was good had we not been able to.
That's a great recycling idea, kat! We had a neighbor growing up that buried an old claw-foot tub and some goldfish were happy there for years. As far as your roof runoff goes, if it's a fairly new asphalt-shingle roof, you might want to put some sort of filter/screen at the end of the downspout to keep bits of it out of the pond.
