If you know someone suffering from glued-to-the-TV-itis: Greg Witt-stock, a.k.a. The Pond Guy to his friends and clients, claims to have a secret cure: Ponds.
Garden water features get folks off the couch and into the yard, he says, adding, “They’ll sit for hours and feed fish.”
Or, in his case, he’ll don his swimming trunks and relax in the 8-foot-deep pond behind his St. Charles home, cavorting with more than 120 bright-ly colored koi that range in length from 6 inches to 2 feet. The graceful slow-moving fish encircle him on this warm summer afternoon.
They know what’s coming. When he toss-es a handful of fish food in the air around him, there’s instant mayhem as it hits the surface. The granules won’t get a chance to reach the bottom because the koi quickly swarm, dozens leaping over one another, jockeying for position as they gently nibble food near his arms and chest.
Wittstock has done this hundreds of times, but it still makes him laugh. The koi have him surrounded, their heads out of the water, opening and closing their mouths as if they’re talking in some weird fish language that only he understands. When things settle down, they follow him, like a big kahuna, as he drifts across the water. “I spend more time swimming in the pond [with the koi] than in the pool.”
He’s not your typical pond owner — a gardener who adds a pond as a focal point. Wittstock is an Extreme Ponder with water features and plantings intended to showcase his business, Aquascape Designs Inc., in St. Charles. The 34-year-old Wittstock is president of the firm, a wholesale manufacturer and supplier of pond-filtration systems. The company has grown from five ponds that Wittstock built while on summer break from Ohio State University in 1991 to one with more than 130 employees, 44,000 customers and a projected annual sales this year of $50 million.
A pond can fit into the smallest urban setting, however, and still have great impact. “The smaller the yard, the more dramatic the water feature. It’s always the centerpiece of any landscape and it makes the setting come alive. Water gardening is such a booming trend because people can escape reality, and vacation right in their own back yards,” he says.
The turtle pond
The pond bug bit Wittstock back in 1982. He was 12 and his first water garden experience was not exactly a success. He moved his pet turtles from an indoor aquarium, a home they were outgrowing quickly, to a concrete pond in his back yard in Wheaton. The concrete cracked, causing a slow leak. The water developed a slimy green layer of pond scum. The dozen or so disenchanted turtles headed out for new digs.
This didn’t dampen his enthusiasm, and he spent several summers tweaking that pond and building others.
For some pond owners, it’s the sound of trickling water or the scent of night-blooming water lilies that they find attractive, he says. For others, it’s the koi, cloaked in colorful scales that look like wild kimonos.
Homeowners are tucking ponds into tight quarters in many Chicago and suburban back yards where they are replacing lawns. (On Saturday and July 18, 230 water gardens in the Chicago area and northwestern Illinois will be featured on the 12th Annual Chicagoland Parade of Ponds; for information, see accompanying story.)
Joan and Rich Kloos of Palos Heights are eyeing a pond. Working with perennials the last five years, the couple now wants to enhance their garden with a water feature. “I really want a small pond with a waterfall right alongside the patio. . . . It’s a big project but it would give us something beautiful to look at year-round from our family room,” Joan Kloos says.
Wittstock estimates that an 11-by-16-foot pond with a 6- to 8-foot stream and waterfall costs about $6,000 to $8,000. Elaborate, large ponds with numerous waterfalls can run more than $50,000. But a small do-it-yourself pond kit with a pre-formed tub and filter costs $500 to $800.
When he’s not working, Wittstock is outdoors with his wife, Carla, and sons Ryan, 4, and Blake, 1, enjoying the ponds. “The first thing [Ryan] says when I get home is `Daddy, let’s go feed the fish.’ It’s great for kids, grandparents, all ages,” he says.
The benefits of water features run much deeper than beautifying the topography of a front or back yard. “In today’s hectic society, a pond is a wonderful thing,” says Frank Stompanato of St. Charles. “After a stressful day, it’s a great place to sit, watch the birds and relax.”
He built his first pond using a kit from Home Depot more than a decade ago. After visiting gardens on Aquascape Designs’ annual pond tour in 1995, he decided he needed a bigger, more natural-looking water feature and had Aquascape Designs install one.
When Stompanato and his wife, Pilar, and four children moved to a new home in St. Charles, he called on Aquascape Designs again. The end result is a natural-looking pond set into the woodland hillside behind their house.
Edged in boulders and outfitted with a stream and waterfalls, the pond was installed in May in just one day. Stompanato’s children, ages 4 to 8, experience nature up close without having to leave the back yard, he says.
“The pond is a social gathering spot because of its natural beauty. It’s a fabulous hobby,” says Stompanato.
Passionate ponder
Besides his koi pond, Wittstock’s 4-acre property in Wayne, coined Aqua Terra, features a 13-foot-deep game fish pond that holds walleye, bass and bluegill and a 20-foot-long cave for snorkeling and scuba diving. Blue and green dragonflies, taking a break from their mosquito patrols, frequently alight on white, acid yellow and magenta water lilies. Scores of iridescent blue zoom just above the water picking off airborne insects.
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He designed and installed his ponds before the house was built in 1999. The site then was an overgrown meadow with three straggly trees. “We spray-painted [the outline of the ponds] in an hour and started digging.”
From his home office, he looks down onto a sweeping setting that could be northern Wisconsin. It’s filled with unusual pines, spruces, larches and other specimen trees planted into a hillside that was created with soil and clay from the ponds’ excavation. The mixture of conifers and deciduous trees, such as `Little King’ birch and golden-tipped weeping hemlocks, creates a green, gold and red palette in the autumn that is reflected in the water.
“I wanted to create a setting that looked like it was always here,” he says. To take advantage of the view, Wittstock had the builder align the front and back doors with the waterfall.
Although he admits, “I’m no gardener,” he chose hundreds of iris, geraniums, baptisia, colorful shrubs, ornamental grasses and other perennials to edge his ponds and the meandering path around them.
“I didn’t approach it from a gardening perspective because I caught turtles, fish and frogs as a kid. However, anyone into water gardening knows there’s more than one aspect.”
He routinely cuts water lily blossoms to float in a bowl in the kitchen.
And at a fundraiser for a water lily society, Wittstock purchased an unnamed yellow water lily and named it `Carla’s Sonshine’ to honor his wife and sons.
For a natural look, he recommends planting “floaters,” such as water lilies, and other aquatic plants such as purple-flowering water hyacinth and dwarf cattails and reeds that grow along the edges in the water. Water willow (Justicia americana), blue pickerel (Pontederia cordata), and bog arum (Calla palustris) are medium-size plants that hug the taller reeds in his pond.
Fish tales
There are lots of myths and misconceptions about having a pond, Wittstock says. “We don’t have as much maintenance today. . . . A pond is less work than a hot tub.”
Aquascape’s technical agent Buddy Fugman says typical maintenance involves about five minutes each day to remove debris that collects in the skimmer net or to add bacteria. “It depends on your location. If you’re in a large wooded area, you may have to clean it out more depending on what collects in the water,” Fugman says.
Spring cleaning occasionally involves draining the pond, placing fish in a holding tank, removing debris and hosing off the rocks to remove algae.
“If you shut the pond off [in November] and the water is stagnant, you would want to replace it in the spring,” Wittstock adds. A homeowner could do the spring cleaning or have a contractor do it for about $150 to $200.
Mosquitoes? “Not a problem if you have moving water. The fish dine on mosquito larva too,” Wittstock says. Think Chicago’s too cold in winter for fish to survive in a shallow pond? Not so, he says. Fish can survive our cold winters in a pond that’s only 3 feet deep if oxygenating equipment is used to keep the ice open.
The key to creating a low-maintenance, chemical-free pond, Wittstock says, is using special filters that eliminate the need for clunky apparatus outside the ponds. He uses biological filters with beneficial bacteria to support the pond’s nitrogen life cycle. Mechanical filters remove debris before it has a chance to accumulate and muddy the water.
Wittstock breaks ground this month for new headquarters in Batavia, which will feature an environmentally friendly “green roof” and several water features.
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Tips from the pond pro
Greg Wittstock, president of Aquascape Designs Inc., in Batavia, and the firm’s head water garden designer, Ed Beaulieu, share these tips for creating a natural-looking water feature:
Call for help. Even if you’re a do-it-yourselfer, consider getting input from a pond designer. Most homeowners discover that their first pond is too small and they opt for a larger one later on. “The average number [of ponds] a person puts in over time is three,” Wittstock says. A designer can help you figure out what you really want and avoid costly mistakes.
Go au natural. There’s nothing worse than seeing the edge of a black tub sticking out of the landscape. You want to make the edges look as natural as possible. And one way to do that is by using a liner, boulders and plants.
Choose a style. Consider what appeals to you, Beaulieu suggests. Do you want a bubbling mountain stream, an Oriental fish pond or a cool spring in the woods. Whatever your dream, you can create it on a scale that fits your home and budget.
Layered look. There are two kinds of pond plants — those in the water and those on the edges. Look for plants that can tolerate damp roots. For a tropical look, you can use ornamentals like cannas as you move away from the water’s edge.
Let there be light. Don’t overlook using special underwater lights, which can highlight fish and plants. “Think about when you’ll be using your pond most,” says Beaulieu. “If you work during the day and mainly enjoy your pond at night, you might like to have a night-blooming variety of water lily.”
— Nina Koziol
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Chicagoland Parade of Ponds
If you’re considering a water feature for your garden, here is a chance to check out scores of small-to-sprawling ponds in a variety of styles at Aquascape Designs’ 12th Annual Chicagoland Parade of Ponds.
What: The self-guided tour features more than 230 water gardens at 197 locations, from downtown Chicago and surrounding suburbs out to Freeport, Sandwich, Woodstock and other towns.
When: Saturday and July 18.
Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 18.
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Cost: $15, good for both days and includes booklet with maps. To buy tickets by phone, call 630-326-2400.
For information: Visit www.aquascapedesigns.com to find garden and pond centers that sell tickets.
— Nina Koziol