My water garden

My first venture into water gardening comprised 2 tubs (one raised, with a waterfall into the other), a spitter, a pump (140 gal/hr), and a couple plants.

For my second venture (shown here), I chose a free-standing (i.e. above ground) 35 gallon tub, with the waterfall tub sitting inside (on a stool).

The plants

In the waterfall tub: Typha minima (Dwarf cattail)

In the large tub:
{left} Houttuynia cordata (Chameleon plant),
{center} Equisetum hyemale (Horsetail rush),
{right} Ranunculus repens 'Buttered popcorn' (Buttercup)

Next to spitter: Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea' (Gold creeping jenny) (By the way, yes - that's real timber.)

Ameliorations

I put a few snails in the big tub to eat the algae. They can handle the icy winter - as long as the water doesn't freeze over. To make them happy, I lined the bottom with stone (so they don't have to suck on the plastic).

The spitter is fed by a 250 gal/hr pump (which I leave running). To replenish the water lost to evaporation and splatterring, I hooked up tubing to the hose spigot, which is controlled by an automatic valve (aka water timer). The tube goes into a diverter, so that I can use it for my bird bath also. I switch the diverter from about 50%/50% to 100% to clean the bird bath.

Because I leave this set up during the winter (and that I live in PA - where it gets into the teens, and even single digits, Farenheit), I use a pond heater. It's rated at 500 Watts, and does the job nicely.

The creeping jenny is also a water-loving plant. So, I set up a dripper fed by its own automatic valve. The emmiter is the black thing at the top of the pot.

Comments

It's functional, looks OK, and is easy to maintain. However, it's not exactly practical. The water from the spitter washes dirt out of the small tub (just a bit, and only the lighter stuff, but it's still a mess in the big tub). To contain the energy of the flow, I created a basin with thin planar-type stone; this worked, but the side stones kept falling over. I then found a shallow planter (made of clay or porcelain).

If I had to redesign this using basically what I have, I'd put the small tub to the side of the big tub, elevated so that it empties into the big tub. I'd use a small pump (probably under 80 gal/hr) and a spitter (or a fountain) to water the cattail, and let the existing pump and spitter remain. This would open up room for a floating plant.