Free Expert Pond & Landscaping Solutions, Designs & Ideas By Peter J May, The Perfect Pond Detective

Every family garden should include a fish or water lily pond. Every single garden pond should be a joy to behold, full of life and never-ending wonder & surprise. Treasure your environment and investment. Water Gardening in Practical Terms ... How To Get Started and Do It Right First Time and have some fun reading about it too

All about pond liners .. click this link to learn about building ponds with liners. Probably best and lowest cost way to build an average pond

You can get 35 year guarantee Polyex pond liner here ... with free liner too along with a vast range of top branded pond and water garden products

Japanese style water gardens Many people come to the Japanese garden style obliquely through their passion for another hobby, fish keeping.

Now that's a pond I would enjoy ... hope you agree as I look up top left corner at Peter's "Pond Solutions" sketch.

If you are like me then the questions below are more like it .... Peter shows us how to avoid all the hassles and turn our dreamlike vision into reality like this one ... a beautiful "mountain" stream running into a pond at Cookes in UK ...

Click here to see larger image

Pond pictures by Peter May

Have you ever contemplated building your own pond or water garden?

Were you scared off by the complexities of designing and then costing and then actually doing the work of building that water feature in your garden in order to increase the value of your property or just get more pleasure out of it?

Were you afraid it would become a nightmare rather than a dream?
Did this prevent you creating that dream pond your family and yourself always wanted?
Did you ever say to yourself ... I am afraid the water will go green and smelly ... will it?
Do you know how many plants must be put into the pond?
How can you put a pond in a garden which is not flat or level?
Should a flexible liner or a preformed pond be used?
Is it possible to use a liner to create stream or waterfall?
How many fish can be put into the pond?
I would like to create a wildlife pond

The key challenge and it is easier than you think when you know how of course .... read Peter's fun (but deadly serious) article on how to meet and resolve water gardening landscaping challenges by clicking the link

To create a successful well landscaped pleasing water garden design is to provide a place in your garden in which all the flora and fauna are interdependent.

As the seasons pass by, things flourish and die. Plants may get out of hand; there may be epidemics of algae or parasites or even huge populations of toads or frog tadpoles. However if your pond is constructed employing the correct basic principles and put together with the right ingredients and care, these events will not be problems, rather just the seesaw effect of nature’s ‘natural’ balance adjusting itself with time.

As you read below take note that there are many links (underlined text) to all sorts of valuable information about ponds, water features, fountains and fish pond care in general. Make sure you spend some time studying the pages the links lead you to.

Click this image to see full sized page from my book ... this will provide you with good idea as to how my book is constructed .... it is designed to help you in the most simple of ways, Clear instructions, clear practical drawings

If you prefer to do the water garden landscaping job yourself do then yourself a big favour and consider buying my book .. read more here . It will repay you the $13 handsomely and quickly

How to choose the place for your water garden, fountain, water feature or pond ....

Northern hemisphere weather considerations are considered here in creating pond landscaping solutions so make necessary changes if you live in warm and beautiful places like South Africa and Australia in the Southern Hemisphere.

The first thoughts that you must seriously consider for the benefit of the water garden and yourself are in regards to siting the pond itself.

Check these points.

The pond should be in full sun. Nearly all aquatic plants associated with water gardens need some direct sunlight to flower especially water lilies. Your dream of those beautiful water lily plants will come to nothing if you starve them of sun
Ensure your pond or water garden feature (it could be a simple fountain or stream or waterfall disappearing below ground) is away from trees (especially deciduous trees that lose their leaves in Autumn) or prevailing winds that may carry poisonous leaves into the pond.
Smaller garden ponds can be netted against the worst of the autumn fall and a few leaves don’t harm a healthy pond. However particularly avoid Willow, Elder, Poplars, Laburnum, Yew and Oak.
Make sure your water garden pond is not over-exposed to the North or prevailing winds.
Avoid any boggy waterlogged areas since this could result in your garden pond lifting
Consider accessibility to a water supply. The water garden or pond will want regular top-ups in the summer.
If there are to be waterfalls, streamd or fountains in the garden landscape, consider the distance to ‘plumb’ in electricity, since this can be a major expense.
Consider SAFETY and children. Where there is water and children, at some point the children end up in it. Generally head first.
Partly for the reason above, but also because we spend so much of the year looking at our gardens from inside our houses, it is advisable to have a view of the water garden, the pond or other water feature or at least part of it from the house.
Check for bedrock, pipe-work, electricity or septic tanks where you have chosen to have your water garden.

Planning the water garden, pond, fountain or water feature

Plan every single sod of earth you dig and cost every trowel of cement you mix. Go through the job from start to finish in your mind working out quantities and costs of materials that will be used to complete the landscaped water feature.

Having chosen the site, choose the shape that most befits it.

Ponds closer to the house tend to be more formal, further away the water garden pond can be more natural looking.
However the pond can mark the boundary between formal hard landscaping and a more informal area, for instance when a pond adjoins a patio or decking.
Lay a rope or hose on the ground to get the best idea of how a pond shape will look.
Try to draw a plan of the water garden idea or design in relation to the rest of the garden.
Ideally do a sketch of the water garden as to how you would see it from the position you are most often going to view the pond or water feature from.
Or take a photograph of the site and draw the garden pond in position on some tracing paper laid over it.

Water garden ponds ... sizes and shapes, designs and ideas that work

Make the pond as large as your pocket or your energy will allow. The larger ponds are, the steadier is the balance the ponds maintain. The absolute minimum is 32sqft or 3sqmetres.

Unless you plan to keep Koi carp, a depth of more than 30ins (76cm) is unnecessary. 18-24 inches (45-60cms) is adequate for most garden ponds.

If you are using a flexible pond liner, keep the pond shape as simple as possible, as dramatic shapes use excess liner and create unsightly folds. Water from the pond pump circulates through the pond much more easily too.

STREAMS:

Beware of making the stream disproportionately large in relation to the pond. Remember, the stream needs an addition of at least ½ an inch (12mm) of water added to its surface to get it flowing. On top of this there is a backlog of water hidden within the waterfall system and combined together this can mean a considerable loss of water from the pond once the stream is in full flood. The marginal plants in particular cannot cope with the radical rise and fall of the water.

MATERIALS

Get your materials (liners, pond pumps, biofilters, aquatic plants etc) from a reliable retailer close to hand. Look into what is available and you will find the competitiveness of the industry has created a range of materials whose price is related to performance and durability i.e. you get what you pay for. It would be recommended for the larger projects in particular to opt for the better quality materials, even if it means having to cut back on the size of the water garden or pond.

Many of the techniques of pond construction using flexible waterproof liners and preformed plastic and fibreglass ponds are covered on this site. Using clay and doing genuine puddling is beyond the resources of most amateurs and concrete ponds require a certain amount of builders’ skills mixed with time, patience and a great depth of pocket!

To further help with the choice of materials, you wll find a list of facts and tips related to individual items or features

Pond Bio Filters,Lights and Electrics

If you are including a biological filtration unit or pond lights and UV lights (essential for algae control in many fish ponds), make allowances for them at the initial planning stage. Both will need an electrical supply. A biological filter will need a submersible pond pump that will capable of pumping half the volume of the pond through the filter every hour. The bio filter will also be designed to cope with the capacity. Some people have the filtration unit dispensing the outlet of water into the head of the stream or waterfall. Considering the filter has to be going 24/7 to be effective and you don’t necessarily want a stream running constantly, I always feel it best to have it as a separate entity. Check with your local aquatic stores for the latest bio filtration technology; there are new products being constantly developed.

Also the development and standards for safe electrical installation out of doors are always being updated. The essential thing is that there must be a highly sensitive circuit breaker (RCCB, RCD) of the correct standard (at the moment 30ma) between any exterior electrical items and the domestic power supply. If you have any doubts about your safety, consult an electrician. At least get one to check your installation.
All connections to the power supply outdoors must be made with the most modern connectors fitted with the utmost care.

Who is Peter J May, contributor to much of the content of this website? Here's what he has to say. ... Hello, I am Peter May. I am an author, horticultural journalist and garden photographer. My specialist field is water gardening, about which I have written five books, two of them were called The Perfect Pond Detective. Not only that though, for 17 years I owned a landscaping company that specialised in the construction of water gardens and we built hundreds and maintained many of them for years. Now, I write regular monthly features for two specialist water garden magazines and have covered aspects of water gardening for most of the garden magazines on the British newsagent racks. I also answer any queries of a water garden and horticultural nature for a specialist Koi carp magazine. I have built award-winning gardens at The Chelsea Flower Show, I have created water gardens for Time/Life Horticultural Library as well as instruction videos for Television.

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