Natural Pool Conversion Plans from Rana Creek




The wonderful designers at Rana Creek have sent us detailed plans for the conversion of our pool to a natural pool filtered by local native plants. I've excerpted bits and blown them up here.

These drawings are marked "not for construction - progress set" so just to CMA I thought I'd mention that.

We are a bit in overwhelm. It's a complex project involving much knocking out of concrete and very careful building of planting cells and bolting on of decorative rocks and constructing a very nice very low bridge near the pool. To say nothing of routing the water from the pool to the back of the planting cells.

We haven't yet been back in touch with Paul, but we have put string around the area that would be affected in our garden, and have pored over the drawings trying to decipher the technical labeling and so on. I though you might like to see closeups of the planting plan and the general look of the pools. I hid a lot of the labeling. I think you can click to zoom in. I also think that "extra large" option I chose for the picture below makes it wider than the blog width, apologies for that. Please click.



One thing I was surprised about is that the planting cell closer to the pool is shallower than the pond farther back. And I was surprised how flat it all is - the ponds are sunken and not raised like with a waterfall. I don't know why I had that preconception - and I'm very happy with and understand the flatness, the weir that the water flows over, etc. I'm still not quite clear about the part where the water finally falls into the pool. We have to study it a bit more, and we will also contact Rana Creek when we feel a bit more cogent about everything. 


 

I have wetland plants a-propagating in the shade area behind the greenhouse. It's all very exciting and - like I said - overwhelming, as the reality of what we are about to undertake hits home!

Comments

Town Mouse said…
This is just too exciting! What a great project. The drawings really do make it quite real.
Goodness, that is quite an undertaking! I expect it will be just beautiful though. I love the raised redwood bridge through the wetland border. The weir where the water spills into the pool seems very appropriate, and I think will look much more 'natural' than an over-sized waterfall too. I can't imagine the resources you're putting into this, but it will definitely be worth it!
Joe said…
It looks wonderful. I can't wait to see this in pictures! :D