Did you know that 45% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions, but only 8% of them actually keep their resolutions? It probably comes as no surprise that the top three resolutions for 2023 are to exercise more, followed by eating healthier, with losing weight coming in third.
Saving money and spending more time with friends and family were hot on the heels of the top three, according to the Statista Global Consumer Survey. But why stop at making resolutions for your personal well-being? Why not make a few resolutions in 2023 geared toward your pond and/or outdoor living space? Home is where the heart is, right? Here are five pond resolutions for you to consider making this year that are sure to improve your pondering experience!
​

When you understand how all the components of your water feature work together, you’ll be better equipped to make knowledgeable choices to maintain a healthy pond. We have tons of information here on our blog dedicated to ponds in Phoenix.
You can also learn about the pond ecosystem (and more) at www.aquascapeuniversity.com. Some of the classes are free and you can study at your own pace! You can also learn about the ecosystem of a pond when you download our free e-book, How to Keep Pond Water Clean and Healthy. Just keep in mind that everything in these resources may not apply to us here in Phoenix. If you have questions, just ask us!

Take a critical look at your pond and determine if you need a full clean out. You can choose to do it yourself or hire The Pond Gnome to do it for you. If your pond doesn’t need a full or partial clean out (filter cleaning), make sure you understand which water treatments to add once the weather starts warming up.

Sometimes pond owners get excited about their new pond and they forget about transitioning the water feature into the rest of their landscape. Consider adding a few marginal plants to soften the edges of your pond, and then take it one step further and consider adding a few plants just outside of the pond to naturalize it. Visit our Aquatic Plants Page for pond plant ideas.

You might think you know your fish pretty well, especially if you’ve named them and visit them daily. But do you know the basics of fish health care? Consider things like thinning out your stock if the fish have babies. Cramped living conditions aren’t good for your fish, or your pond for that matter. Learn our three basic tips for proper fish keeping.

​It’s always fun to add new elements to your outdoor living space, like a new deck or patio set. But have you ever thought of adding something to your pond? The new addition could be as simple as a waterlily or fish, or it could be a bit bigger like a new spitter, or a bridge to traverse your stream, or even creating a new lighting scheme with color-changing lights. Some pond enthusiasts like to tweak their waterfalls from time to time, which can change the sound of the water in the garden. If you want to add something really exciting to your pond that creates ambiance, consider a fire and water feature. Whatever you decide, adding something new to your pond will give it a fresh twist.

​Crawdads. Crayfish. Crawfish. Mud bugs. Yabbies. All of these names refer to a 10-legged “mini lobster” that inhabits many of the fresh water ecosystems on our planet outside of India and Antarctica.
​

​Crawdads come in a wide variety of sizes and colors. Of the nearly 600 known species of Decapods, 30% are listed as endangered, and very little is actually known about another 20%.  The fish tank trade ships them all over the world with different marketing names like “blue lobsters.” They are an important part of the natural food chain in their NATIVE environments, providing food for raccoons, birds, predatory fish, snakes, and last year people consumed an estimated 75,000 tons of them! To each their own.

Here in Arizona, they are NOT native, but rather were originally imported by early settlers and currently listed by our Arizona Game and Fish Department as “highly invasive.” They are omnivorous and voracious competitors to most of our native freshwater species here. They have decimated the aquatic plant life in many of our mountain streams and they do serious damage to stream banks, causing some major erosion issues.
​

We do NOT recommend keeping them in your Sonoran Desert backyard pond for a several reasons:

1. Most of them are prolific and short-lived.  Once you have an established population, they are difficult to eradicate, and the dead ones will sit behind your rockwork and stink up your yard, as well as providing food for algae blooms.
2. Gardening your aquatic plants is no fun with mudbugs pinching your digits every time you try to divide an aquatic plant. They’re just not cooperative when it comes to gardening.
3. They will catch and kill your pet fish every chance they get. Yikes!
4. The Arizona Game and Fish Department has them listed as “invasive and unwanted” in our Great State 48.  Aquatic pets like crawdads have a habit of escaping into our wild ecosystems and wreaking havoc.
5. Many species of crawdads are diggers and will spend endless hours working on a way to get that 3’ deep tunnel they are programmed to build into your pond membrane system. It will be difficult for them to get through most high quality liners like EPDM or RPP; however, with the tools Mother Nature gave them, they very well may get through anything.

OTHER POSTS YOU MIGHT ENJOY:
WILDLIFE AROUND A POND
FROGS IN A PHOENIX POND
PONDS FOR BIRDS & BUTTERFLIES

​Once you have a pond installed, your life immediately changes. That might sound dramatic, but it proves true. The beauty alone is an enhancement to any outdoor environment, but along with that beauty comes peace, relaxation, new plants, and new pet fish. Water features create an outdoor experience like no other landscape element or home improvement. Whether you’ve had your pond for many years or just a few months, you might find yourself wanting to tweak it for ultimate enjoyment. Here are just a few ideas that might interest you.
​

​Watch your water garden come to life at night with underwater lighting! Tuck lights into the waterfall and enjoy the shimmering effect of the light on nearby bushes and trees. Place lights underwater to shine across the pond so you can see your fish during evening hours -- we swear, they play tag! In the spring, you’ll see frogs dart across the shadows of the pond’s surface. Warm white lights create special ambiance, while color-changing lights create a spectacular display.

​Driftwood is ideal for concealing water feature components or adding realistic decorative accents. The addition of driftwood looks great in and around your pond – however you choose to use it.

​Enhance your pond and give your fish extra protection from predators when you add a fish cave to your water garden. Simply lower the Faux Log Fish Cave into your pond and watch your fish swim through it. The cave also provides shade for your finned friends during the hottest days of summer, and it looks extremely realistic.

​Spitters and decorative fountain elements add a touch of excitement and a flow of water to your water features. Decorate your pond or waterfall with a toucan spitter, lazy frog spitter,  naughty dog, spillway bowl(s), etc. There’s one to suit your taste and style!

These are just a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing. We'd love to see what YOU come up with!

OTHER POSTS YOU MIGHT ENJOY:
SIX PONDS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE
NOT SO SECRET TIPS FOR A CLEAN & HEALTHY POND
WHY WE DON'T BUILD WITH CONCRETE​

​The supply chain affects every business and consumer on the planet. And over the past year or so, we’ve all seen what happens when it breaks down.
You probably remember the great toilet paper shortage of 2020. These days, you’re more likely to see shortages of stuff that makes other stuff, like building materials, mechanical parts, and plastics, for example. We’ve been waiting for four months for a plain ol’ picture window for our kitchen! And then there’s the truck shortage. There aren’t even enough parts to build Chevys, so General Motors literally stopped making pick-up trucks at two of their manufacturing plants.
The pond industry has been impacted by these issues in massive ways, as well. This is also why, if you’ve signed a contract for a pond installation in the past year or so, you might still be waiting to enjoy seeing your Koi swim their first lap around the pond. The Pond Gnome has done its best to mitigate this issue by thinking ahead and stocking up on commonly used materials.
​

Demand for new Koi ponds as one of the biggest home improvement trends nowadays is at an all-time high. Everyone is feathering their nest, improving their home & lifestyle, rather than put up with the hassles of modern travel (flight delays & cancellations, COVID tests, etc.). Not everyone has a Koi pond in their back yard, but everyone seems to want one! It feels like such a luxury item and, when built properly, provides hours of enjoyment and asks only minutes of maintenance in return.
The entire pond industry is working through a serious supply shortage, in a wide range of critical materials, especially in the plastics field. Our supplier (Aquascapes) continues to produce over 50% of the products we use domestically, which has been a big help.
But even sourcing domestically, these parts and materials are currently in short supply for pond builders:

• PVC
• Pump and filter systems
• Skimmers
• Pavers (decking/retaining wall materials)
• Maintenance equipment
• And much more

Material shortages have not only stretched out timetables on projects like your Koi pond, they’ve also (unfortunately) made so many elements of these projects cost so much more that pond builders have no choice but to pass higher costs on to their clients, both for construction and for maintenance.
We wrote this article to help you understand specific reasons behind the longer timetables and higher costs you might be experiencing.

The COVID-19 lockdowns felt like the mother of all supply chain disruptions when businesses of all kinds were forced to shut down in 2020. But 2021 and 2022 have thrown a few of their own monkey wrenches into the works.
Producers might ordinarily turn to overseas supplies to bridge the gap, but then a massive container ship got itself stuck in the Suez Canal for a week, slowing sea-borne shipping to a standstill and depriving manufacturers of critical supplies. And the hits just keep on comin’!

​In short, the market for ponds has been hit by a perfect storm of perfect storms. We’ve gotten through pandemic shutdowns, weather disruptions, and one really big, really stuck boat in the worst possible place. It’s rather baffling if you look at all the events as a whole.
Like most pond builders, The Pond Gnome is working as hard as we can to install every customer’s pond, but the simple reality is that we can’t work any faster if we want to maintain our industry-leading standards. In our book, good enough is NOT good enough. Quality of materials and workmanship is priority one at The Pond Gnome.
Nor can we overcome supply chain issues when they are simply out of our control -- regardless of our desire and efforts to prevent them.
No doubt, it’s a frustrating situation for all parties involved. Homeowners want their ponds to be installed right now. Pond builders are doing their best to make hay while they can. But the obstacles we’ve discussed will likely continue to affect our entire industry (and many others) for the foreseeable future.
So, whether you’re planning on getting your pond from The Pond Gnome or from another contractor, we can only say this:
Hang in there. Seriously. The wait will be worth it. The memories will soon be made. They may not start being made when we all hoped they would, but they will certainly be made nonetheless.
The pandemic has forced a patience upon each of us that we likely had no idea we were even capable of. The best advice we can offer is to plan ahead, and enjoy the anticipation.

A Spring pond is yawning and stretching (figuratively, of course) and getting ready to burst forth with life. The plants that were dormant and dull all winter start shooting out some new growth. This is when the old growth can be trimmed/thinned away to allow the new growth into the light. And algae is always the first weed in the garden, so there's some of that to deal with.

A Summer pond is growing aquatic plants like nobody's business! You have to stay on top of it, or your aquatic plants will eat the pond. It's an active time for water gardeners. And what better place to garden in 115 degree heat? Your Koi and goldfish are ravenously devouring food and constantly begging for more. This is the time of year you train them to eat out of your hand.

Aquatic plants are starting to slow their roll as the water temps begin to dip. You still need to tend to them, but not quite as often as during the summer. Koi and goldfish begin to go into their dormant season, as well, and you stop feeding them the commercial fish food.

During our "winter" months here in Phoenix, most of your aquatic plants are dormant, and your Koi and goldfish are generally hanging out at the bottom of the pond, clustered together for warmth. There are some cold-water loving plants, like Iris, that will give you some winter color. However, most of your plans will look a bit chlorotic during this season. Some areas of the Valley even have light freezes, so you might see some ice around the edges of your pond in the morning.