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What You Need To Know About Landscaping Ponds
Landscaping ponds is a fancy term referring to the building not only ponds, but the environment around the ponds. Other terms used for landscaping ponds are pondscaping and waterscaping. Your pond becomes part of the general exterior design. Do you want it to fit a theme of your whole property, say, a Japanese garden? You can landscape ponds that already exist as well as starting from scratch.
Checklist Time
You need to make plans before you pick up a shovel or hire a landscaper. Not just any old blank space of land can be converted to a pond. Make sure when landscaping ponds that your pond:
is on a relatively flat stretch of land
is somehow closely connected to running water or a water source, even a garden hose
is allowed on your property (check your local zoning laws)
is not inundated with lots of foliage that drops in and can wreck the chemical balance of the water
Landscaping ponds will take up a huge investment in your time and money. Dont get a pond on a whim.
What Is This Pond To Do?
When you are landscaping ponds, you need to prepare in advance what purpose this pond will serve. Do you want to raise fish? Raise eyebrows? In general, small ponds without many plants or animals are easier to maintain. If you are looking just for water ornaments, then consider small, manmade preformed pond shells. You wont need a contractor to install them. That will give you more space to add rock gardens, plants, out houses, little sculptures or lawn furniture. And even small ponds of a few gallons will delight the local bird population, who will stop to take a sip.
What All Ponds Need
When you are landscaping ponds, no matter what the pond is for, they all need a few of the same things:
A filter of some kind.
A water pump or agitator to keep the water circulating. Without these two, your pond will become a mosquito nursery and will smell strange.
Water chemical tests to check for ph and chlorine balance and the chemicals to fix them
A platform or hard waterproof surface lined around the edges of any ponds that are sunk in the ground. The edges can get very mucky.
A sense of humor. Nothing ever goes off entirely as planned, even landscaping ponds. Keep things in perspective and roll with the punches. |