A Caribbean Pond Oasis - The Begining

Can you imagine water so blue? In the Caribbean maybe...

We could not resist coloring the water. The dye used is 'critter' friendly and although I have heard it said that coloring the water doesn't look natural, we like it.

We used a heavy duty pool liner (the blue) and sand and poly as a base. Then we added the different sizes of river rock and finally placed odd sized boulders. All of the stones and boulders were delivered to our driveway and hauled to the back by us...oh...my aching back.

Creating a Wooden Retaining Wall

How do you like our new cedar fence? We have 266 more feet of fencing to build. With the new cedar fencing barely aged a week, pushing wet clay soil against it wouldn't be the smartest.

Back in 2005 when building our above/onground pool at our previous home, Jim created a sturdy retaining wall. Why? We were building the pool into the backyard slope. In order for there to be no issues, Jim decided that a half circle retaining wall would give the added protection for the pool sides. Please see http://www.my-gardening-and-landscaping-makeover.com/retaining-walls.html for complete instructions and images. Ergo, Jim decided to, on a much smaller scale, do the same for in front of the fence. This way the soil rests against the treated lumber and not the new cedar wood.

Jim left a space between the retaining wall and the fence for the placement of a weeping tile or also called a drainage pipe (made from corrugated plastic). He then covered the pipe with gravel. This space has also been renamed as the 'rabbit highway'.

Preparing The Flowerbeds

The weather forecasters called the spring of 2008 in Winnipeg as wet. Really? I thought that every spring was really, really wet in Winnipeg. After all, there is a ton of snow to melt!

The small kabota was no match for Winnipeg's soaked clay gumbo. After digging out the 2 ponds, Jim tried ever so slowly to move the clay dirt into mounds for my flowerbeds. Everything work fine until he reached a certain height. Then 'all heck' broke loose. It is with great thanks to our maker above or just great timing that Jim managed to jump out and free of the kabota as it fell to its side. The image shows Jim trying to push the tractor back up. Not going to happen.

With the help of the rental people and a winch, they up righted the beast and Jim continued his mission. By the way, the mission was accomplished!

Digging For Gardens and Ponds

In April of 2008, as the frost slowly left the ground (and I mean slowly), my husband Jim began his quest of digging the 2 Caribbean ponds and while he had the 'digger' in his possession (he had so much fun) it made sense to create my mounded flowerbeds.

Is it allowed to have fun using spray paint? We did. Prior to the digging, we purchased orange spray paint to outline our 2 ponds and outline the shape of all flowerbeds.

This ingenious idea came from Jim. In doing so, we realized that our larger pond would have been far too large and definitely unmanageable. We lobbed off at least 8 feet from the length and 3 feet from the width. Much better.

Every Garden Starts Somewhere

The best start to My Garden Makeover Blog shall be like the Mary Poppins song...let's start at the very beginning ...a very good place to be.

When we purchased our current property back in 2007, both my husband Jim and I were over-joyed at the endless possibilities of a 400 foot backyard. Our previous home, though quite comfortable, left nothing more to the imagination. We had completely renovated the inside and and the outside ...take a look for yourself. http://www.my-gardening-and-landscaping-makeover.com/garden-design.html

We built a pool into a slope (see the above image), built a cedar enclosure for the hot tub, built a barbecue cedar gazebo, installed interlocking stone patio and not to mention the creation of countless gardens growing well over 200 different perennials. Oh yes, I can't forget to add the pond and mini waterfall.Within the 8 year span of completing the above projects, we knew that at some point the 'landscaping itch' was going to affect us and we would need to scratch. Indeed we did.

We found an incredible property with a reasonable blank canvas. Here our imaginations could go wild ...so to speak.

Jim could finally create his Caribbean Oasis. We were never really the summer cottage types. The thought of traveling (tired from a weeks work) so many hours on a Friday night, only to be repeated again so soon on a Sunday night (tired just thinking of the weeks work ahead) had no appeal to us.

The first summer we walked, talked and measured. Then came the demolition of the existing garden structure, an arbor, and small perennial garden.

Watch out ...next comes the digging...