A Pond!

Water gardening can be challenging for the novice. Water gardens when completed add such an atmosphere of tranquility to any landscape or garden. It involves creating a pond in your garden, and maybe other attributes to go along with it.

Whether you’ve got a small garden, or a large garden capable of handling an extensive water garden, planning and design is crucial for the success of your wter garden.

If you already have a small lake or pond in your garden, or even a little winding stream, your water gardening efforts just became that much easier. For the sake of this article, we'll focus on starting a water garden from scratch.

If you’ve thought about water gardening then you’ve probably already thought about the how’s and where’s of how to obtain water for your water garden, and equally, how to dispose of it with ease. This being the case, we can now concentrate on the actual water gardening.

There are plenty of DIY(Do It Yourself) books in the market these days on building your own pond, so I won’t go into too extensively. We'll just focus on the basics. Your pond will need to be designed in a way that will fit within the confines of your garden and budget. Remember to map, sketch out the details and visualize.Once that’s done, mark out the edges and start digging to the desired depth and shape. Line with a pond liner when finished, and weight down with stones and plant pots, as required.

If you want your pond to include fish you’ll need to make the pond a livable habitat for the fish. Hardier fish that can survive winter are a must if you want them to live for an extende period. Koi, and Goldfish are the most popular varieties. Ask your local aquarium to provide you with more information on the most appropriate fish for your pond. Also keep in mind that Koi tend to grow to about 2 feet in length when fully mature, so it’s desirable to leave them some swimming room for later on.

After the pond has been filled in, it's time to add to it and its surrounding the plants essential to water gardening. The Lotus plant is the preferred water plant and is easy to grow. You can also choose from many varieties and shapes in the Lotus family. Make sure to avoid clutter in your pond by not adding too many plants

Place the rest of your chosen plants artistically, in and around your pond area, and you’re good to go! You will see that the finished product will be worth all the effort and hard work.

Don't forget to check out some great tips and information on mulching on our next article.