Welcome to earthponds
A resource for pond builders, pond lovers, and home owners.
Why earthponds?
Experience and Knowledge
Tim Matson is an award winning author about ponds, pond design, and pond building. If you are into pond building, planning to build a pond, or repairing an existing pond, you have come to the right place. Tim consults with scores of property owners each year, providing advice and counsel at reasonable rates. Photo by Joe Mehling.
Monthly Pondology Essays
Each month, Tim writes an original essay about pond maintenance; the latest trends in design; ecological concerns; and wetlands regulations. NEWS FROM THE WATERFRONT can be delivered directly to you via email. Use the contact form to sign up for the pondology, or contact Tim about your pond project.
JUNE 2021: Here we go again, the second summer of high housing demand in Vermont with wants outstripping supply. Along with the high-demand house is the even harder-to-find accompanying feature: a pond. There are two ways to get a pond. The already existing pond, or the one you build. For several reasons, buying a house with an existing pond is generally easier than building a new pond from scratch. Why? Because building a new pond is especially challenging on terrain that is new to you. How much time do you have to evaluate soils, water supply, permitting, clearing, cost estimates, and more. While competing home buyers line up ready to outbid you. I suggest that pond-loving rural buyers, in Vermont and elsewhere, consider the advantages of buying a place with an existing pond. Of course, as with the questions involved in evaluating an existing house, there are questions to raise about an existing pond. The following article from 2020 explains those questions and considerations. Note: there is a link to Part Two, How to Buy a Used Pond, at the end of the article. To learn how to buy a used pond, click here.
Tim matson'S photography website
Another Side of Tim Matson
Before his work in pond design, Tim Matson was an award-winning photographer and story teller. His new website offers a look at early work, much of it never seen. Now you can.
"Matson has the eye of a cinematographer,"
The Harvard Crimson
CLICK HERE to visit the new site.
Featured book
Earth Ponds A-Z Encyclopedia
"Aside from some particularly thoughtful frogs and phragmites, no one on earth knows more about ponds than Tim Matson. His books have counseled and consoled me through the digging of two ponds, making a daunting process far more interesting and pleasurable than it deserved to be. His... A to Z Encyclopedia is the ultimate pond-owner's companion, brimming with sound advice, smart suggestions, and answers to ancient riddles. But this book doesn't only instruct -- there's delight here too." Michael Pollan,
author of the Botany of Desire, Cooked, How to Change Your Mind, and more.