Backyard Ponds, an Irish Pub, and Koi Who Skip Dinner
If you have ever stood at a garden pond, watched a koi glide under a lily pad, and thought, that must take a small miracle to maintain, this newsletter is for you.
In just ten days, the Minnesota Water Garden Society (MWGS) opens the gates to backyards from Lino Lakes to Woodbury for its annual pond tour, and I got a preview this week from Gaelen Kesler, who serves on the society’s board of directors.
By the end of our conversation, I was convinced of two things: water gardening is far more approachable than it looks, and I need to see the garden with the Irish pub in it.
Wait, a what?
You read that right. Site 4 on this year’s tour belongs to Mike and Judy of Shoreview, whose gardens have been featured in national magazines. Mike designed and built the pond entirely himself, and it is quite a build: on their one-acre lot, a 20-foot, four-tiered waterfall and stream emerge from a stand of mature spruce trees and cascade into a 20 by 15-foot koi pond. The landscape holds three water features in all, plus sweeping perennial gardens, a whimsical cottage playhouse (first enjoyed by their four children and now by their nine grandchildren), and yes, a fully outfitted Irish pub you can actually walk into. Mike regularly welcomes nursing home residents for tours of the yard, and the whole setting recently served as the backdrop for their daughter’s wedding.
“His gardens are really beautiful,” Gaelen told me. “He retired about 20 years ago, and it’s a labor of love. He gets his whole family involved. The grandkids come out to help him plant and mulch.” How much planting are we talking about? Mike ordered roughly 500 flats of annuals this year. Flats. Not pots.
A tour of backyards, and the people behind them
The tour is a self-guided driving tour, which means you set your own pace and pick your own favorites. A few stops Gaelen flagged for me:
Site 2 features Japanese-inspired design, including a floating granite rock bridge and a tea house. Several sites this year were built by professional contractors, and some of those contractors will be on site during the tour to talk about their builds. This is a gift if you are the kind of person who wants to know how things actually get made.
Site 5 belongs to Stephen and Beth, who have only been in the club about two years. Their whole water garden started because Beth got a rain chain for Christmas and they could not decide what to do with it. One rain chain later, they have a big pond, and Beth now serves as one of the club’s pond coordinators. She is a master gardener with beautiful plantings and, Gaelen noted with some envy, bluebirds in their yard.
Site 6 is Gary and Mary’s, where two flower-lined paths wrap around either side of the pond, and the water comes right up even with the back deck. You can sit with your coffee at pond level.
Site 10, Rick and Mary’s, has a waterfall that spills into a koi pond, plus something I want you to pay attention to: a bog.
The biggest myth about ponds in Minnesota
I asked Gaelen what people get wrong about keeping a pond here. Her answer surprised me: it is not winter. It is the fear of chemistry.
“It’s keeping it balanced, the ecosystem, the algae, the good bacteria,” she said. “But it’s really not that hard once you get into a routine.” And increasingly, the club is skipping chemicals altogether in favor of bogs, which are natural filtration systems built from plants and rocks. “People are learning we don’t have to put chemicals in. We can use plants and rocks to filter the water.” The club is building a bog of its own this year, and you can see a working one at Site 10.
You don’t need a pond. You need a pot.
Here is the part that made this container gardener’s heart sing. When I asked what she tells people who fall in love on the tour and want to start, Gaelen went straight to containers.
“We’ve really been encouraging people to do container water gardens,” she said. “You can do it on your deck with a small water lily and some water iris. It doesn’t have to be a big pond. You don’t have to have a huge investment.” Most of the tour sites will have some type of container water garden on display, so look for them as you go. If you have been reading this newsletter for any length of time, you know I believe a single pot can hold a whole season. Apparently it can hold a water garden, too.
And about those koi in January
I had to ask. I saw koi on last year’s tour and have wondered ever since how a tropical-looking fish survives a Minnesota winter. The answer: several ways, all of them a little wonderful.
Some owners overwinter their koi indoors. Gaelen keeps hers in a heated tub in the garage, holding the water between 35 and 40 degrees with an aerator, ever since a mink got into the pond one year. Many people simply leave the fish in the pond. As long as the pond is at least three to four feet deep at one end and an open pocket in the ice lets oxygen in, the koi settle into a kind of hibernation near the bottom.
The strangest part? According to Gaelen, once the water drops below about 45 degrees, you stop feeding them. From roughly October until April or May, they do not eat at all. Feeding them in cold water is actually hazardous to their digestion. “It’s kind of funny,” Gaelen said. “You’ll walk by the pond and they just look at you like, well, come on, where’s my food?”
If the tour gives you pond envy
You will not be left to figure it out alone. The Minnesota Water Garden Society pairs new members with a “pond buddy” in their area, an experienced member who will help you think through design and features. The club also offers resources on its website, an active Facebook page and forum, and monthly meetings where members, including a few of those professional contractors, answer questions. “We try to provide a good support system for people who are new to the whole thing,” Gaelen said.
If you go
Minnesota Water Garden Society Pond Tour, Saturday, July 25 and Sunday, July 26, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is a self-guided driving tour, with sites stretching from Lino Lakes to Woodbury. Tickets are $17 in advance on the society’s website or $20 the day of the tour, available at any site. If there is one garden you simply have to see, single-site admission is $5.
The tour is just around the corner, so if you want the advance price, now is the time. Head to:
https://mwgs.org/
and look for the QR Code.
Go for the waterfalls. Stay for the pub. And keep an eye out for those container water gardens.
Until next time
Diana
#bloomwithme
This looks like a great opportunity for Tele Macro with my new lens!
OMG, I need to do this! I love the idea of a container water garden. That's all I have room for and probably all I have the patience for! Thanks, again, for sharing news of such fun events.