LINERS
When selecting a Pond liner go with the “inner
tube“ type of Pond Rubber Liner such as a EPDM liner. The thick plastic kind is much easier to puncture, it breaks
down and deteriorates faster and I have seen holes chewed through it by voles before.
Make sure
you excavate your pond before you purchase the pond liner because it will probably be bigger than you initially planned.
PREPERATION
WHAT NOT TO DO
The
best way to get bad results with a do it yourself water garden is to dig a hole, throw in a pond liner, fill it with water
and stack rock on the edges. This believe it or not seems to be a common practice. It is a bad idea for many reasons, it’s
dangerous for one. With the unstable edge followed by a steep slippery slope into the bottom of a pool. Also anywhere the
sun hit’s a pond liner it will quickly deteriorate.
A SERIES OF SHELVES
With the pond properly dug in a series
of shelves you can make your water garden a safe and natural looking masterpiece and an ideal place to grow
water plants and Koi fish if you choose.
| Gravel, stumps & plants make edges apear natural |
|
PLANNING ON THE EDGE
To get a natural looking
pond, the edges need to be visually broken up. Have you ever seen a pond in nature with rocks piled all the way around the
water line? It can be broken up with stumps, gravel bars, shrubs and water plants but this will need to be considered in the
excavation.
Start with the water line not the edge of the excavation and lay out
the size and shape of the pool. A garden hose or extension cord works but some sort of string would be better so you can spray
paint the lines on the ground without making a mess of your equipment.
After you’ve painted
this line on the ground draw any areas where you would like to have water plants either inside the line or out, keeping in
mind anything outside the line will increase the amount of pond rubber liner you will have to purchase and anything inside
the line will make your pond appear smaller when the plants are grown.
If you plan
to incorporate a stump into the ponds edge now is the time to find it and bring it to the site. By adding a bay to the ponds
shape so that the stump can span across from edge to edge you can make a place for koi fish to hide from herons and other predators. Also make another bay for the waterfall area and a bay for each gravel bar. The
stump when placed in it’s final position should be elevated just above the waters surface because Cedar for example
will leach tannin into the water and could make your koi fish sick.
Now draw some gravel bars coming out of the bays you made for them. These will be areas
where gravel is visible above the surface then slopes gently down beneath the water like a small beach.
Finally draw one more line following along the inside all of these lines which
will be the first shelf.
As long as this shelf is perfectly level, the actual pond edge doesn’t
have to be because if the bank is higher on one side you can just put larger rock to hide it . Make the shelf wide enough to comfortably hold the rocks you intend to use on the edge of the pond. When you
dig this shelf out slope it toward the edge of the pond to secure them from rolling off the edge in case someone were to step
on them. The depth of the shelf will be the tricky part. You want the bottom half of the rock to be sitting on the shelf,
half way under the water and the top half of the rock halfway out of the water and the topmost part of the
rock just above ground level. Again the important thing here is to level the shelf as the rock sizes can vary to reach
over the top of the dirt bank. Use a long straight board with a level as a makeshift transit level to get this rock
shelf as level as possible.
EXCAVATION
DIG IN
To
dig out the rock shelf, find the lowest point of this outside line. Using your long board & level if your concerned
about optical illusions tricking your eye. This will be your starting point. You can now dig the whole area inside the line
to about two inches shallower than your smallest edge rocks (if your smaller rocks are 9” dig 7” if they are 7”
dig 5” etc.) This will make your edge rocks reach high enough to hold the dirt bank up.
If
you have children, as a safety precaution you can make a plant shelf of sorts all the way around the inside of the rock shelf
and wide enough so that if they fell in they would not reach the deep waters. Then you can dig from the center to
your desired depth. If you intend to have fish, it should be at least 12” below the thickest depth the ice reaches in
your area. This also gives them deep a pocket of cooler water to hang out in on hot days and prevents raccoons from wading
in and having Sushi for dinner. Add a few inches to all of your depths for the fact that the water line will be a couple inches
below the lowest overflow point. Slope the bottom of the pond to a deep spot a few inches deeper than the rest of
the pond and large enough for a pump to sit in. This deep spot is called a sump and it will make cleaning simple because you
wont have to chase the water around in circles and over hills to get it to the Pond pump and you can carefully scoop the junk
out of it rather than scraping off the entire bottom of your pond. Or if you gravel the bottom of your pond the junk will
run trough the gravel to the sump. You can put a ring of rock around it to keep the gravel out.
Gravel bars can be created by using gravel instead of edge stones. Hide
the liner with the gravel right up into the dry ground outside of the pond. Use the gravel to create a gentle slope from outside of
the pool to the edge of deep water area of the pond. Use large, stable and low boulders along the edge
of the deep water area as a retaining wall to hold the gravel in its place. Make these large gravel retaining rocks low enough
so they don't break the surface of the water. Although one tall rock would make a neat little off shore island.
Dig out your plant shelves to about 9” deep + the few extra for the lower water surface level. These should
have a vertical wall right up to the rock shelf so the plants can be placed tight against the edge rocks to help visually
break up the ponds edge.
INSTALL A POND SKIMMER
I recommend
digging a hole in the bank large enough to hold a skimmer. A pond skimmer to me is a must, even if you don’t have
the possibility of needles and leaves falling in the water the surface will accumulate dust that floats on top and looks unsightly.
Also it hides the pond pump and eliminates having to have plumbing running down the edge of your pond to the bottom. Position
the skimmer as far as possible from the fall area so the current will help shove any debris toward it. A U.V. light filter
can also be hidden in a skimmer and it’s the best way to keep your pond water clear of algae.
LINE IT
If your in nice clean dirt, a liner underlayment
may not be necessary. If there are rocks or roots it’s a good idea to use one. First cut any roots off flush with a
sharp pruner or a pull saw. You can purchase an underlayment or find some old carpet or use very wet sharp sand troweled on
like cement. If you opt for the later you will want to have the liner ready to lay in and the hose ready to fill it up before
the sand dries out and starts crumbling to the bottom.
Put your pond skimmer in it’s
hole and lay the pond liner in the pond but don’t cut anything yet. Start filling it up and helping the water to get
the pond liner tight to the bottom with no air pockets underneath. Once the water has some weight to it you can start pulling
and stretching the wrinkles out of it every so often until it’s full. After its full and the liner is properly fit,
drain it out then cut and hook up your pond skimmer.
WATERFALL HOW TO ~click here~
This is the point where you will want to build your waterfall if you intend to have one. Use some carpet scraps or something to protect your liner where you will be walking on it.
How To Build Your
Own Waterfall!
LANDSCAPE ~
Place your edge stones around the perimeter of the pond. Anywhere you want to hide some of the rock edge with shrubs
use your narrowest rock so the branches will be able to reach past them and hide them more easily. Place rocks as securely
as possible at the bottom of the gravel bars (and around the sump if you will gravel the bottom) to hold the gravel. Before
putting in the gravel you should make sure it’s been properly washed even if it looks clean by running the hose through
it and seeing what comes out. Shoveling it onto a tarp laying on a slope while blasting it with a hose works well for cleaning
it.
PLANTING
If you use black plant pots and a black liner they
will blend pretty well below the waters surface however If you don’t want to see plant pots in your pond you can build
natural looking ones by making retaining walls out of rock along the edge of the plant shelves much like the gravel bars metioned
earlier in this article. Place the pots in the cavity and fill it with gravel to about an inch over the top of the pot. This
can make it difficult to divide your water plants when they become to thick though. Or you can place a liner in the rock
cavity made of landscape fabric and soil and plant directly into the soil followed by a layer of gravel. Use heavy clay based
soil with no pesticides or fertilizers and then add a water plant fertilizer tablet to each water plant.
Marginals need to be just below the waters surface and submerged plants and water lilies will need to be at different
depths depending on the variety. Use rock and gravel to get the proper height for the particular plant. If your deep area
is way to deep for a Lilly pad an upside down pot makes a great pedestal and you can carefully cut holes in it to give your
fish a place to hide.
Water plants can’t dry out even a little bit or they will die so
you should have everything ready and be in the process of filling your pond as you plant.
When
the pond is full again carefully cut away the extra liner
All that’s left now is to throw
in some fish, pull up a garden bench, sit back and enjoy!
By Aaron Jones (c)
Build Your Own Koi
Pond!>
How To Build Your
Own Waterfall!
