Repurposing a Prefabricated Pond

I love all kinds of plants, as I am sure you do too! For numerous years, I've had two small, round, 35-gallon prefabricated ponds. I had them above ground as large water garden containers in which I grew waterlilies and also raised minnows (to eat the mosquitoes). Both ponds recently developed leaks from cracks at the bottom of each pond, so I had to replace them with new ponds. What to do with the large, leaky ponds? I hated to haul them down to the local dump. They were still in good shape except for the small leak in each.

An idea popped into my head!

In my yard, I have two issues that often prevent me from growing some plants. One garden problem is root knot nematodes and the other problem is quack grass. Both issues have challenged and discouraged me over the years! I always considered the idea that I needed a very large container to grow some of my plants in to protect them from the bad nematodes and invasive quack grass. The price of very large containers was cost prohibitive for me, but .... the two ponds got me thinking about repurposing them!

I decided to treat them as large containers instead of ponds. I drilled numerous holes in the bottom of both ponds. Then I dug holes to sink them down into the ground, added my homemade soil mix, added plants, and waited to see how it would work out! I was very pleased with the results!



Solving the quack grass dilemma with weed blocker fabric and lots of mulch and using one of the ponds to create a small butterfly and flower garden:


The other pond was used to create a large in-ground container for a Brugmansia tree. Also planted inside the container are 3 Minuteman Hostas, which are starting to come out of dormancy. I did not bury the pond to the rim because the PVC pipes for my well are running underneath that spot, so the pond is only buried about 2/3 of the way into the ground. To cover the protruding sides, I planted spider plants around the outside of the pond. As the spider plants get bigger, they will cover up the sides of the black plastic pond.



The ponds are deep enough that the quack grass runners/roots can't find their way down to the small drain holes in the bottom of the ponds. The depth of the ponds also seem to be keeping the root knot nematodes at bay from my plant roots. A win-win situation! Just another great way to repurpose something that you might otherwise just toss in the landfill.