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Homes

On golden pond, the perfect life

Carroll Ann Bennett's stress reliever is her exotic koi-filled garden pond at her Virginia Park home.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published May 13, 2005

VIRGINIA PARK - In the 13,000-gallon lily-pad laden pond outside Carroll Ann Bennett's back door, an underwater camera dubbed the "koi cam" lets her watch her beloved fish frolic no matter the hour.

"We're even thinking of running a line upstairs so I can watch when I'm folding laundry or getting ready to go to work," explains Bennett, a 47-year-old postal worker with a biologist's passion for fish and ponds.

"My kids think it's hilarious, that I'm crazy. They've started calling me "Goldie Goldfish."'

Understand this: Bennett is an otherwise sane and reasonable woman who lives with her husband and family across from Friendship Park in a quaint 1925 house complete with a white picket fence and red climbing roses. She also seriously adores ponds and everything that goes with them.

As a child, she used to find any excuse to play with fish, catching them in puddles and drainage ditches and hanging around her neighborhood roller rink - not to skate, "but to stand on the side and look at the fish pond," she confesses.

Admittedly, she explains, "I walk that fine line between collector and obsession."

This weekend, the public will get a chance to see her behemoth 5-foot-deep, fully screened mother-of-all-fish ponds, when Bennett and husband, Mike Fanning, open their doors for the sixth annual Pondscapes Pond and Water Garden Tour.

Visitors will get to glimpse the likes of Teddy, Lily, Sparkle, Magnolia, Lady Bug and Ginger, a school of seemingly adoring koi all of whom Bennett knows by sight.

"It's so tranquil and peaceful out here, a place where I can reflect on stress, how to handle it and what to do," Bennett says of the pond built by Pondscapes in November. "I feel that it's added years onto my life."

The tour, free with a donation to the Humane Society of Tampa Bay (past tours have raised $20,000 for the organization), features 11 ponds Saturday and eight Sunday. Though most are in South Tampa, this year's tour features two ponds in Brandon, one in Seminole Heights and two in North Tampa.

The tour will also highlight imported Japanese koi, goldfish, aquatic plant specimens, and even funky little luxuries like the "koi cam."

Bennett and other pond owners will be on hand both days to answer questions.

The event is as much about gardens and outdoor living spaces as it is about ponds, organizers say. Bennett, for example, grows great roses, the luscious, red Don Juan variety, so perfect that passers-by often ask her the secret. (Both the flowers and the specially made fertilizer are from Hardin's Nursery in South Tampa.)

"Most people who love ponds love their homes and gardening," says Kevin McLeod, co-owner of Pondscapes. "Visitors on our tours tend to ask as many questions about home innovations as they do about water features."

Bennett's pond boasts an underwater tunnel for the fish to swim through, a large soothing waterfall and a pair of decorative antique concrete garden lions that flank a tailored brick walking path.

"This is the Cadillac of fish ponds. Very few people go this far. Most want smaller," she explains. "We planned and saved for seven years to be able to afford this. I told my husband: "No anniversary ring or cruise: This is what I want."'

The cost for such a job can run about $25,000, though many people save money by doing the labor themselves.

Edged in river rock and flanked by Egyptian papyrus, water lettuce, lily pads and a plant called Black Magic, Bennett's pond is a dandy, all right.

"We wanted to create an oasis, a place to get away from the rest of the world, to listen to the waterfall and see the fish," she says. "Our goal was to make this a private escape."

To create the necessary space, the couple downed their old, detached garage and hired an architect to design a new one. They also hired a contractor to build a screen over the pond to keep out birds, leaves and mosquitoes.

They also decided to start off "supersized" so they wouldn't feel the need to expand later. That's McLeod's biggest piece of advice to anyone aching for a fish pond, particularly if they hope to raise koi.

"Koi are schooling fish and have very pretty swim patterns," he explains. "If you want to see that, then you need to give them room."

As for Bennett, there's plenty of room for observing pattern: In the midday sun, she watches the brilliant flash of orange, yellow, black, red and white glint just below the surface. During the hour or so she spent showing off her pond and its offerings to a recent visitor, a water lily opened in full bloom as if a gift.

As for the koi cam, it only offers a black-and-white peek at such natural wonders. Bennett always prefers to view her pond in person.

"I'm out here every minute I can. I pay bills, read and do work out here," she says. "I've lived in this house for 15 years and I don't think my husband and I ever spent a minute out here. Now we're out here constantly. I think human beings are just naturally attracted to water."

The Pondscapes sixth annual Pond and Water Garden Tour runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The self-guided tour is free with a donation to the Humane Society of Tampa Bay. Tour packets may be picked up at Pondscapes, 4213 S. Manhattan Ave., in advance or on the days of the tour. Packets include directions and descriptions of each water garden. For more information call Pondscapes at (813) 839-8062.

[Last modified May 12, 2005, 00:28:09]