The pond offers beauty in all seasons.
Dick Schuck has been enamored of ponds since he was young. “I’ve been fooling around with ponds since my father built one for me when I was a boy. My whole life, I’ve always had a pond,” he states. It is hardly surprising then that he grew up to establish his own business for aquatic plants, Maryland Aquatic Nurseries. According to Schuck, ponds bring new dimension to any garden.
“They provide totally different plant material than a land garden and the surface of the water shows off and reflects the plants around the pond in a way that’s very beautiful.”When he and his wife Sharon, a graphic designer, purchased their home in 1990, they collaborated on a transformation of the four-acre property with a pond as the centerpiece. Sharon provided much of the design, Dick provided most of the muscle.
Throughout his two decades in the nursery business, Schuck has seen the good and the bad of pond construction and learned from it all. From a practical standpoint he designed his pond with a flat bottom using no gravel on the bottom to make cleaning and maintenance easier. The pond is also not too deep, only about three feet. Unlike some water gardens that go over-the-top with large waterfalls and big ponds, Schuck scaled the water features to the property size to give it the appearance that it is natural to the landscape.
Most ponds require a filter box, but Schuck wanted something more innovative. To keep the water clean, the pond not only houses a selection of algae-consuming fish, but also utilizes a plant filter. Water celery floats on rafts and sets down roots that naturally filter the water. The filtered water then passes down a gentle waterfall that is only about a foot high and into the main pond.
The pond is biologically filtered by circulating the water through the roots of water celery has seen here in the filter box.
Visually, Schuck took some inspiration from Japanese garden design. “You never want to see the entire garden from any one point,” he explains. “You create curves and things to block the view. That makes you curious so you want to walk around. There are secret places.”
One such nook is the wisteria-draped deck next to the pond where the Schucks can enjoy peace and privacy. The wooden deck is even with the surface of the pond, which creates one plane of view, a trick to the eye that makes the scene look larger than it is. Dirt from the pond’s construction was used to create berms around the water feature that naturally undulate. “These berms are not uniform; they represent, in miniature, mountains abutting a body of water,” says Schuck.
Schuck wanted the pond’s edge to be neat and accented with creeping plants that would overhang the edge, giving it a more natural appearance, so he forwent lining the edge with rocks or stone (which can conceal leaks and other mounting problems). He opted to line the feature with plastic and backfill dirt to the edge, creating a clean canvas for planting.
Initially, the Schucks planted just about anything they could get their hands on—which is not hard when you have your own aquatic nursery at your disposal—but learned early that too many diverse plants just made for a cluttered landscape. Instead, the garden is now restricted to only their favorite plants, grouped together for maximum effect. The plants were selected both for their beautiful flowering capabilities and for their interesting foliage.
Imported Koi and goldfish add a blur of color and sound and are an important part of the biological balance of the pond.
Notes from the field:
This is a story about ingenious and superb design.
I was drawn to photograph this story because I felt the pond garden was superb example of ingenious design. From the first time I was invited to join Dick and Sharon Schuck on the deck adjacent to the pond I was impressed by the tranquility, and by the feeling of familiarity. Then it hit me, “I know this place.” The Schucks’ pond reminded me of the end of a narrowing tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.
I have spent many happy hours sitting on a small dock on Kings Creek, off the Choptank. The creek narrows and bends there, offering views of the surrounding marshes and forests. Kings Creek is a peaceful place, surrounded by the sounds of birds and frogs.
Schuck’s pond, too, was surrounded by bird sounds, and tree frogs that sing into the pines. The deck where we sat was built so that the water appeared to flow under it, and masses of impossibly colored fish schooled in front of us. The Schucks had brought the Bay into their backyard—through very thoughtful and considered design.
The pond is basically a large naturalistic rectangle that runs on a north/south axis, connected to the house by a pergola covered deck. The soil removed to create the pond was sculpted along the eastern edge into an undulating berm that starts low at the south end and rises to its highest point at the north. The largest pond-side plantings include winterberry, long leaf white pine, and witch hazel planted on the highest point of the berm. Viewed from the deck or the south side of the pond, the north side appears to curve and continue on past the largest berm. This design, working in concert with plants positioned to grow over the edge of the pond, was developed to create an optical illusion that the pond is larger than it actually is. From the deck,looking past the pond, past the berm and accompanying plantings, to the line of tall conifers, the perception one develops is of a large expanse. This line of trees also perfectly mirrors what is seen on the bay, where the forest ends at waterside.
Sitting on the deck, I was impressed by the thoughtful use of color. Underwater, white, gold, red, yellow, and orange fish flash in and out of the light, while the surface is decorated with pink and purple water lilies. The beds along the pond’s perimeter are expressed with foliage, texture, and bloom. After visiting many times, I know that spring offers a temporary show with seasonal blooms from the dogwood and wisteria, and in the fall and winter bright red winterberry anchors the northern edge of the pond. By late winter, a red flowering witch hazel makes its bold statement. Throughout the year, contrasting textures of the plants along the pond’s edge work to create a visual rhythm—a longleaf pine next to the witch hazel, which is placed next to the Joe Pye weed, and so forth.
On the practical side, I find the simple efficiency of the pond quite remarkable. Once established, it costs very little to run—just the electricity needed to power the circulating pump and the bubbler. This is because Dick created a biological filter, which cleans the water for no money. In a large elevated plastic filter box, situated just around the “bend” on the north side of the pond, he planted water celery. This plant is a native of Asia, it winters in place, and is the first plant to emerge in the spring and the last to go dormant in the fall. A short time after emerging, the plants fill the entire filter box, and their long roots absorb the nutrients produced by the fish and other inhabitants of the pond, creating a loop or closed system. The color of the water celery is so intense that Dick incorporated it into the textural palette of the north side of the pond—the central point of a visual swirl, surrounded by winterberry, sedum, viburnum, and others.
Basically, like any other well-thought-out, well-executed project this one simply works.
— Robert Noonan
Left: Spring offers wisteria in bloom. Middle: Japanese primrose. Right: Autumn late blooming water lilies.
Both sedate hardy lilies and the showier tropical varieties are, of course, center stage, though each gets its own place in the pond to create a powerful visual statement. “You want to keep the tropical lilies and the hardy lilies separate because your eye is going to interpret it as more natural to see the tropical lilies growing together and the hardy growing together; that’s the way you would see them in nature,” says Schuck. “You would never see the two mixed.”
Irises are also abundant (the variegated Japanese Iris laevigata is a particular favorite) and bog bean skims gently across the water surface. For a unique twist, Schuck floats dwarf balled cypress trees in island planters. “They’re so slow growing and shaped so nicely they’re almost like a bonsai,” says Schuck.
Ideally a pond should look a part of the landscape. “We tried not to use too many different plants because it looks junky, cluttered,” says Schuck.The Schucks’ pond is softened by junipers and Creeping Jenny that hug the ground and overhang the edge of the water. The stream meandering into the pond is lined with carnivorous pitcher plants that bring vivid hues and an otherworldly interest to the landscape with their colorful yet deadly throats.
The remainder of the garden gathers structure from plants such as witch hazel, weeping white pine, and grasses. Schuck likes to plant winterberry around a pond because it is slow growing with a simple shape. In winter the plant is covered in bright red berries that bring color to the gray seasonal landscape. “I also think the Joe Pye weed has beautiful foliage, nice vertical stalks and its flowers are lovely and mauve,” says Schuck, adding, “butterflies go crazy for that plant.”
When Schuck and his wife set out to create their garden, the goal was to make a natural looking pond with beautiful plants and dazzling fish. Together they like to sit by the pond in the early evening and enjoy a cool drink or glass of wine under the wisteria on the deck, which is also large enough to entertain family and friends. “The pond and surrounding gardens fit together in a natural way that tranquilizes your very being,” says Schuck. “It adds much to our life.”
Christianna McCausland is a Contributing Editor for ChesapeakeHome.
Contact:
Maryland Aquatic Nurseries: marylandaquatic.com or 410-557-7615
