LOL! I don't know Ingrid, but if you can't type up your chores in 20 words
or less I think you've over shot low maintenance. ;-)

I wouldn't call my pond systems lo-maintenance. Fairly easy, yes, don't
have to work on them very often, etc. Anything to do with heavy wet plants,
I don't consider lo-maintenance, I'd call back straining, especially
twice/year movement. Nor any coverings for winter or leaf fall (I'd love to
get out of that). Green house or even a screen house would be so nice.

Lo-maintenance in my book would be that high tech million dollar pond where
the computers do a lot of the work. ;-) Or a vortex filter system where I
just pull a valve to drain the muck out of the filters. ~ jan


On Wed, 4 Jul 2007 11:54:47 CST, wrote:

Mine is low maintenance.
SPRING veggie filter started up:
suck out water and junk accumulated in veggie filter over winter.
go buy 3-4 nice hanging baskets with flowers.
find the bucket filter, rinse, insert pump into this, lower into pond.
dig up some water celery growing next to pond, wash off dirt, insert
into plastic pot (no dirt) and hang on screws in veggie filter.
haul Cyprus out of basement, trim dead tops and roots, insert into pot
OR, bend one dead stem over, staple to hold at right level for roots
in water.
find itty bitty pump and hook up to UV filter
DURING SEASON:
fertilize the baskets of flowers
haul up the bucket filter 3-4 times to clean it, after that the bucket
filter isnt needed
FALL veggie filter clean up.
remove the plants and trash everything except the Cyprus which goes
into the basement in a tub under lights.
suck the filter clean.
put the plastic lean to greenhouse thingy over the top to winterize
drop in the heater

getting those plants out in fall is not an easy thing. they grow so
large they are wedged in and have to be cut out without cutting the
liner. I would like to try so rigid PVC with holes in the bottom to
see if Cyprus will grow well but I can get them out easily .. next
year.

I wish I had my whole pond inside a greenhouse so I wouldnt have to
remove the plants in fall and start em up again in spring. I miss how
it looks in Aug, Sept, Oct. Ingrid

On Wed, 4 Jul 2007 00:36:48 CST, Phyllis and Jim
wrote:

Low maintenance and no maintenance are different terms for us.

We do very little to maintain the pond...we think. The three berm
ponds and three upflow barrels are drained annually and the 3 x 5
bottom of the 'deep well' get netted out once a year (that is where
big stuff finally goes. (Total time needed: less than 2 hours).
Beyond that, we throw out loads of hyacinth and cerley during growing
season. The berm ponds are veggie filters and aleviate the need of
any other filter. No filter pads to clean. Everything else is
tinkering (except feeding the koi in the main pond). The water level
is self-maintaining by a toilet valve.

Does that come up low maintenance?

Jim
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us