I could never include my ponding history in just one post, but can start way back in 2002, when I caught the pond "bug", and have been upgrading water features ever since (you could hardly call some of my early endeavors a pond, or "feature"). This is my progression in the summer of 2002. Here's my first ever water feature. It wasn't bad at all, but the water dried up daily and I was constantly trying to keep the bird bath full enough to keep the pump going and burnt the pump up. This was my first "pond". It didn't last long, maybe 2 weeks...then I needed to upgrade. I replaced that with this 50 gallon stock tank. Used a lamp to use as a fountain in the middle of it. The lamp wasn't meant to be in water, so it crumbled. Then I got worried that I might be required to fence the pond, so this was my temporary solution... Found out it wasn't required to be fenced and we had no neighbor children. But, I still expanded the fence, as I was new and paranoid. I tried to fancy up the stock tank by gluing river rock around the edge. That didn't quite suffice, so I decided to bury the stock tank. But I got tired of digging, and left half of it above ground. By this time, I'd gotten some bigger rocks, but didn't quite understand the concept of making them look natural yet. I soon added fish, and discovered I was supposed to have filtration, so I used my first "pond" as a filter/waterfall. It worked, the fish lived, but it wasn't pretty. But this was my start in using plants as filter materials. That's as far as I got in 2002, and just the beginning!
I want one so bad but will probably never get to build one even what you called a mistake .I would love.
I think your ponds are very nice!! I would have to fight my dogs too much and it would be a losing battle for me to even try to have one!! Oh well... maybe one day!!
That was one entertaining post PL You obviously learned lots from any mistakes you made because your current pond is a sight to behold. I like the watering can idea in the first pic. I also love the perimeter fence 8)