Trade Master

How To Make A Water Garden presented by Trade Master

Water gardens are a great addition to anyone’s property. They can provide emotional happiness and they allow for a feeling of peace and tranquility in your yard. You may be wondering how you can build your own water garden from scratch, if this is the case then you have come to the right place. I will be outlining all the steps you need to know when designing a water garden, also steps on how to go about building a water garden. So sit back relax and get ready to learn how to build your very first water garden on a budget.

Planning Your Water garden

The first step in building your water garden is to plan on where you want it. The best location would be on level, well-drained ground. Also, when your planning be sure you’re not directly over any underground pipes or wires. If possible try to place your water garden where it will receive a balanced mixture of light, and shade. Avoid building near big trees or in places of heavy wind as you don’t want your filtration system to get clogged up with leaves and other things flying around in the air.

Designing Your Water Garden

When designing the actual water garden your first choice you have to make is whether or not you want an informal or formal design. A formal design is typically basic geometric shapes (Rectangle, Square, and Circle), this is intended to make the water garden look man-made. Informal designs typically look like mother natures creation, they will often have weird abstract shapes involved and sometimes a stream or waterfall to blend the design of the water garden. The ideal depth of your water garden should be 18-24 inches; this depth will be able to support the growing of aquatic plants and most types of fish. Knowing the capacity of your pool is very important when sizing your pump and also for using the correct amounts of chemicals. If you are unsure of the capacity of your water garden the easiest way to check is by applying a flow meter to your water supply line. Once you know the capacity of your water garden you are ready to find your liner, only purchase “flexible liners” as they give you the ability to shape it to your water garden dimensions even if it has irregular shapes. To determine the size of liner you need measure the longest point of width and length and then figure out the smallest rectangle you would need to cover those dimensions, this will tell you what size of liner you need.

Installing Your Water Garden

The very first step in installing your water garden is too install the flexible liner, the following are the five steps involved in doing this.

Remove the grass
Dig the hole
Prepare the hole
Position the liner
Add edging materials

For the second step its time to install the shell of your water garden.

Mark the shell outline
Dig the hole
Set the shell
Backfill around the pond
Add Edging

Choosing the Features of Your Water Garden

The last thing you have to do in order to get your water garden in working condition is too add the Pump and Filtration System. Pumps can do a number of unique things for your water garden that you may not have even known. They can make obviously make your pond drain and have the water re-circulate but did you know pumps can also make fountains spray up into the air, now that would be something to show the neighbors. To decide the size of the pump you are going to need divide the total volume of water by 2 and get a pump that delivers at least that number. For instance if your water garden holds 100 gallons, buy a pump that can deliver 50 gallons an hour. If the pump isn’t strong enough you can always buy a more powerful one it won’t cause harm. Now for the filter, there are two choices here Mechanical Filter, and a Biological Filter. For the purpose of this I’m going to suggest to get a Mechanical Filter as they will do the job just fine, look for one that can filter through the entire volume of your water garden once every two hours. Once these two key pieces are installed to your water garden the only thing left to do is add plants, fish, and snails. I’m going to leave that up to you to decide as it’s more of a personal decision on what you want to be looking at in your miniature water garden.