How to Build a Garden Pond

by emma814

124K2098

Intro: How to Build a Garden Pond

Adding a garden pond to your landscape is an effective way to increase property value and aesthetic appeal to your backyard. The sound of flowing water is naturally soothing and has been proven to reduce stress and improve overall health. Creating this type of water feature looks harder than it actually is. Here are instructions on building a basic garden pond on your land. Once you have mastered the basic construction, you can get creative and employ added touches like fountains, statues or live fish.

STEP 1: Step 1

Analyze the space you have chosen for a pond. Are there trees, rocks or special soil conditions to think about? Can these items be removed or worked into the landscape? Will this be a small pond with a water feature emerging from a slope, or is it a large pond filled by an incoming stream? When you have considered these factors, chalk an outline on the ground.

STEP 2: Step 2

Begin the excavation. If a smaller water feature is being constructed, a depth of three to five feet is ideal. If a hard tub liner is needed, slide this in to place, making sure there is little chance of leakage over the sides of the pond into the space beneath the pool liner. If a flexible liner is being used, make sure that there is enough overlap on to un-dug ground until the rest of the work is done. These liners may require a water plant or two to keep them submerged until the air is worked out. Stones work well also.

STEP 3: Step 3

Attach the pump. Some tubs have a pump outlet hole for the associated tubes and cords. You will need to find an inconspicuous space among the water plants to hide them. Lay some weed fabric into the streambed along with some washed stone to keep it in place. Lay the pump hose along the bed to the start of the stream and then add larger stones around the hose.

STEP 4: Step 4

Add the water plants. Remember to be consistent with your choice of plants around your pond. If you are in a dry climate, you will probably not use ferns. Conversely, if you happen to live in a wet forest region, you will not be planting cacti.

STEP 5: Step 5

Turn on the water and test out your new garden pond. Make any last minute changes that you deem necessary.

8 Comments

finton 10 years ago

Emma, that is a very nice pond! I can feel stress melting away just by looking at the photo.
However, I must agree with the others: as this is not your own work, you should have given the original author credit as andytt11 has done below. If you actually built this pond yourself, a pictorial "diary" of you doing so would have been better - we could otherwise have just gone to the watergarden.com site for the same instructions.
Don't let that stop you making more Instructables, but do remember intellectual property rights. Cheers.

sistergldnhair 11 years ago

cool but what do you use to keep the water in and how mutch was that

madeline.jenny 13 years ago

thank you for sharing :) i am excited about building a pond!

but plagiarism is no good. *shakes head*

artworker 14 years ago

Beautiful!
2 questions: Where are you situated and what plants did you used?

HI! 14 years ago

How much would you estimate this cost? :) --Devorah

Appox 14 years ago

Nice and informative, good job. Better than what I see most people do, which is dig a hole, put down some plastic sheets and fill it up.