By Shawn Hogendorf, Correspondent 

The Twin Cities Pond and Landscape Tour will come south of the river this weekend featuring two Spring Lake Township water gardens and one Credit River Township pond.

The free, self-guided tour is a place to get ideas for building and designing water features, as well as to learn tips about maintenance and view landscapes.

Although all three ponds on the tour feature beautiful gardens, tranquil and serene settings and of course, lots of water, the water gardens and the people who have maintained and designed them all have very unique stories.

Hommerding

This is the first time Phil and Sarah Hommerding have put their ponds on display for the tour.

They designed and constructed their pond located at 17411 Killarney Ave. in Credit River Township by themselves. The Hommerding’s ponds hold about 50,000 gallons of water, 15 large Koi fish, between 8- and 20-inches long, many baby Koi fish and a variety of exotic water plants.A group of Koi fish gathers for
lunch. The Hommerdings’ pond is at
17411 Killarney Ave. in Credit
River Township.

The Hommerding’s water structure begins with a 20-foot-by-20-foot upper pond, designed as a planted filter pond, with sucker fish and plants. The upper pond feeds into a 50-foot stream that flows along plants and boulders into an 8-foot deep Koi pond that is 30-by-30 and serves as home to an abundance of Koi fish and doubles as a swimming hole.

Phil started the project in 2006, and said it took a full summer to get it running.

Filtration is key. Other ponds on the tour feature bogs as the main filtration system – but the Hommerding’s filtration system takes an entire shed to house it. The extensive filtration system incorporates bottom drains, a settling chamber, two pumps and two bead filters.

“I wanted the best of both worlds,” Phil said of his two ponds and four gardens with ornamental grasses, perennial flowers, hostas and ground covers. “I wanted lilies and cattails in the pond, but they’re not good for the Koi because the upper pond isn’t deep enough to make it through the winter. I’ve always liked Koi and water, but now I’m getting more into the gardening because it just makes things look better.”

Phil said the fish in the upper filtration pond provide insect control. The bottom pond, rocked on the edges, contains a liner for the fish. The bottom pond is deeper, so the fish can survive the winter.

“I got a kick out of designing and setting these ponds up,” Phil said. “Now, I’m getting to enjoy it.”

Phil has been a member of the Water Gardening Society since 2005. The pond is an educational site on the tour, so Phil will answer questions about engineering a pond project.

Fisher

The Spring Lake Township ponds featured have been on the tour before.

This is the third time Debbie Fisher’s water garden at 4401 207th St. in Spring Lake Township has been highlighted. Fisher designed her water garden and had it installed by Mark Danelski of The Pond Masters.Debbie Fisher’s pond-less waterfall
system that leads up to her front
door at 4401 E. 207th St. in Spring
Lake Township.

“It’s so peaceful and tranquil here,” Fisher said. “It’s just a little slice of heaven.”

Fisher said in her hectic life of advertising deadlines, it’s nice to come home to a “world of peace and tranquility.”

Fisher’s “slice of heaven” doesn’t require much maintenance, either. She said she spends about an hour a week cleaning up and weeding the water gardens.

Fisher updated her water feature from a pond to a shallow, low-maintenance “pond-less waterfall system” with stepping stones. The home’s driveway enters a private, wooded lot full of 200 perennials and stone bridges leading to the front door.

The pond-less waterfall system starts with a 3-foot-by-5-foot bog for filtration. The bog feeds the 45-foot stream that flows under two flag-stone bridges and over two waterfalls that dump into an 8-foot-by-5 foot pond near a newly-installed cobblestone patio with a fire pit.

“I just love the sound of the stream,” Fisher said. “I never knew how tranquil and relaxing the sound was. I can have any window in my house open and hear it. It’s very therapeutic when weeding and watering the gardens.”

Fisher’s gardens contain about 100 perennials.

“I wanted a north woods feel, not something exotic,” Fisher said. “I went more for visual color and stone that flow together. It even looks beautiful in the winter.”

Fisher said her favorite part is the low maintenance; she can lower the water level to the point that the stream flows into just rock.

Pajari

This is the ninth year for tour veterans Kate and Lowell Pajari. Their pond, located at 3300 190th St. in Credit River Township, showcases the design and construction they did on their own.

The natural ecosystem is maintained with a filtration bog, an aerator, evaporated rock salt and good, old-fashioned cleaning. The structure contains five waterfalls, a 15-foot stream joining two Tiki huts filled with bars and covered with thatches imported from Key West. The structure is surrounded with 6 tons of rock and aggregate the couple extracted from their 40-acre plot, and a variety of petrified fossils the couple has extracted from their land, the north shore and parts of Colorado.Kate and Lowell Pajari designed
and constructed the pond, at 3300
E. 190th St. in Spring Lake
Township.

The newest piece to the Pajari’s structure is an updated patio with granite boulder end cuts to go along with the putting green, bocce ball court, horseshoe pits and the 5 foot deep, 20,000 gallon swimming pond. Other new additions to the Pajari’s structure are fountains and an abundance of splashing water to go along with five different style gardens along the stone pathways.

Between Kate and Lowell there is 25 years of water gardening experience.

“There is a little something for just about anyone to take away from this structure,” Kate said.

Shawn Hogendorf can be reached at shogendorf@swpub.com.