By FRED KRONER
fred@mahometnews.com
After a year of reconstruction and renovation, the pond and waterfall area at Mabery Gelvin Botanical Garden is nearly ready to re-open.
Tuesday was devoted to the laying of approximately 8,000 square feet of sod that will surround the one-half acre pond.
A private re-dedication for local donors is scheduled for Sept. 12 and marketing coordinator Lisa Sprinkle hopes the area will be open to the public beforehand.
“The fences should be down prior to that,” she said.
Those who visit this fall won’t see the same floral patterns as they will in 2020.
“Some of the beds will be temporary,” said Michael Dale, Lake of the Woods assistant site superintendent for grounds. “With the August heat and little rain, we didn’t trust bringing perennials and putting them in.”
Annuals will be planted instead to finish the current growing season and the floral portion of the project will be completed next year with perennials.
The refurbishing marked the first of its kind in the 40 years the garden has existed at its Lake of the Woods site near Illinois Rt 47.
The work could not be delayed any longer.
“We had a catastrophic failure,” said Mike Fry, construction manager for the Champaign County Forest Preserve. “We lost all the fish and were losing more than an inch of water (from the pond) a day.”
The draining of the pond in July 2018, was just the beginning of the work.
“Over six million pounds of silt and debris were removed (by Dig-It Excavating),” Fry said.
The project was pre-planned and Sprinkle said necessary arrangements were made.
“In front of the waterfall is a popular wedding site and we didn’t schedule weddings for this year,” Sprinkle said, “although people could still use the gazebo.”
In 2017, there were nine weddings held in front of the waterfall. During the limited dates that were available in 2018, six weddings took place.
“The infrastructure was so old, it needed a complete overhaul of the pond and waterfall area,” Sprinkle said. “The operations staff would sometimes patch it together before weddings.”
Much of the funding for the work came through donations, including one from Rosann Gelvin Noel. The garden area was named in honor of her mother.
“She (Rosann) wanted to see the area restored,” Sprinkle said.
Dale said there were not a lot of surprises once the work began.
“We didn’t know the whole scope, but it was about what we expected,” Dale said. “Using a wetland filter to filter the water is something different.
“It takes a lot of rocks.”
For the curious, Fry expounded on the term “a lot of rocks.”
“There’s one million, 742,000 pounds of boulders and rocks,” Fry said. “The biggest one in the waterfall weighs 4,260 pounds.”
Whenever possible, Fry said they made use of local businesses, though he said the largest rocks were transported from Missouri or Wisconsin.
“The majority of the rocks came from Mid-America Sand & Gravel (in Mahomet),” Fry said.
The sod was purchased through Pedigo Sod, located on Staley Road, in rural Champaign.
The pond and waterfall area benefited in a way that could not have been predicted in advance.
“Seven trees fell (throughout the entire forest preserve in the past year) and are in the pond to provide fish habitat,” Sprinkle said.
It didn’t take long for the trees to turn into a home.
“Turtles and frogs are living in one of the trees,” Fry said.
The pond has been stocked with 26 koi and, last week, Fry said 366 native plants were added from Genesis Nursery, located in the northern Illinois community of Tampico.
For some folks, the dramatic change of scenery will be less surprising. They have already had a brief preview.
Fry said a YouTube video posted through Team Aquascape “has been viewed 107,000 times during the construction of the waterfall.”
Aquascape Construction, from St. Charles, was involved in the design of the waterfall as well as the arrangement of some stones.
The new waterfall, Sprinkle said, has “a more naturalized look.”
The completed pond has been refilled with about 350,000 gallons of water.
“One end is shallower than the others,” Fry said. “The deepest is about six feet for fish to winter.”
The shallower areas are about two to three feet in depth.
“Most of the work has been done with a staff of four people,” said Fry, who added that around 40 different persons were involved in the workforce at some point during the past year.
The largest group of workers was needed when the 4,000-pound liner was removed from the pond. Eighteen people were involved in that endeavor, Dale said.
Two pumps are used in support of the area. The one for the waterfall moves 60,000 gallons per hour.
The other pump for the wetland filter handles between 30,000 and 40,000 gallons per hour.
The to-do list still includes completion of a totally handicapped-accessible area for the entire walkway. The area previously consisted of pea gravel, which is not considered fully accessible.
Barring weather delays, Fry said, “by October, we will have an accessible walkway from the entrance (to the botanical garden area) to the garden to the pond and to the museum.”
Those with a fondness for the past will be heartened to know that not everything is new.
“We left some aspects in place,” Fry said. “Some of the original side walls remain and the border rock wall around the edge.
“It has been a neat project.”
Sprinkle said the efforts of all have been greatly appreciated.
“They have done an amazing job,” she said.
