I’ve been a landscape gardener for over 20 years now, so i have done my fair share of pond builds of all sorts of styles, sizes, and budgets. With this post I will be showing you some of these that I have built over the years, and hopefully will give you some ideas of your own. All of the photos in this post are of ponds we have built, or have worked on. This was a small sized pond we built a number of years ago. Due to the lack of access into the garden, Unfortunately we couldn't use any machines. So it was all dug out by hand, and wheelbarrowed away, and all rocks were man handled into place. It was a linered pond, so it was dug out and then the ground was covered with underlay before the butyl liner was installed. It was also constructed with natural rock and 100mm log rounds at its perimeter, also with a cobble beach. The water cascade was built with the same natural rock, laid onto a concrete pad, and rendered between with a water proof render mix.
One useful Tip when installing underlay in windy conditions, is to wet it down. The extra weight stops it from moving around. This is what Alex is doing here, with a much larger pond we built.
This next project was of very similar design. However, the client wanted more of a stream, and much less of a pond. They also went for a natural rock cascade, and the log rounds within the stream and pond sections. The additions of log rounds can give it a Japanese feel if they are laid at various heights. We also added a couple of potted acer’s, to add to the effect.
Other additions we have used in the past to give them a Japanese feel, are oriental ornaments, and narrow bridges are great eye catchers.
A few other tips if you are thinking of building a pond. Is to calculate the volume of the pond in litres. Take the average width in meters, multiply it by the average length, and that by the average depth. That will give you the cubic meters. Multiply that by 1000 for the litres measurement. This measurement is important for a few reasons. One main reason is to calculate the size of pump and filter needed. A general rule of thumb is to turn the pond over once every 2 hours. So if your pond is 10000 litres, you’ll need a 5000 litre per hour pump and filter combination. Here a just a few other ponds I will post about in future posts. Including a Chelsea flower show garden, designed by Chris Beardshaw
(
)
They are all gorgeous, wish my garden was big enough as hubby would love one :)
Ponds never have to be a specific size. A small water feature is easy enough, and can fit into any space within reason.
Hes not getting one, he has 2 fish tanks that's enough lol
oooh love this kind of posts. do post more! i still havent found my dream land, built my dream house, but my browsers and archives are full with ideas hahha
Thank you @thekitchenfairy. Will do. Plenty more projects to talk about yet. 👍
you posted superb gardening topics, I just went down the rabbit hole, scrolling your posts haha
LOVE them, thank you so very much for awesome gardening page, at last!
Those look great. I dug a pond years ago, but eventually it leaked. It just got filled in for another project and we'll dig another. Thinking of a stream this time. There's not a huge slope, but should be enough to get some movement. Is it viable to use a solar pump for a small stream?
Thanks steve. It’s not impossible to use a solar pump for this type of application, but not ideal. You can get solar pumps that pump up to 500l per hour, but once you’ve taken head of water height, and flow loss within the pipe work, that would be down to about 350-400 in most cases, so isn’t really a great amount of flow. However, if I was wanting to use solar power exclusively, I’d put 2 Pumps in if needed. Roughly 10 years ago we had a meeting with a sales rep from Cyprio pumps. He said at that point they were looking at making the pumps much more energy efficient. Within a year, A lot of their pumps were 90% more efficient. One of their 1000l per hour pumps now are just 25w where they would have been getting on for 300 before they made those changes.
Our old pond did not have a pump as we like to keep it fairly natural. Not looking at making a huge pond anyway. Just something for the wildlife and to add some interest. Had frogs and newts in the old one.
Congratulations @leighscotford! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
You have been curated by @hafizullah on behalf of Inner Blocks: a community encouraging first hand content, with each individual living their best life, and being responsible for their own well being. #innerblocks Check it out at @innerblocks for the latest information and community updates, or to show your support via delegation.
I really like ponds. As a pond connoisseur I approve of these ponds! Did you notice frogs?
Thanks. Yes frogs are quite common, along with newts. We’re seeing a few more of those lately.
I'm glad to hear the amphibians are loving your ponds. I looked at some of your other posts. These are amazing creations you are doing.
Have you ever done any natural swimming pools?
I have been involved in a few swimming pools, and yes one of them was a false rock natural pool. My old boss along with the director of a company called armordillo, looked at starting a company called green rock, where they made false rock, and one application would have been swimming pools. We helped build one for a client, but it didn’t reallly take off. I have featured the first time we made this rock in one of my previous posts about a Chelsea flower show garden we did a number of years ago.
https://steempeak.com/life/@leighscotford/construction-of-chelsea-flower-show-2010-l-occitane
I heard they have to be very large to work well and it would require a certain individual to want one. Probably easier just to separate pond and pool.
All those creations look incredible. I can't wait to look through more of your posts.
very beautiful place...