Building a garden pond

Noffles

The missus has thoughs of building a pond in the garden... could be a built opne with breeze blocks or one of those kits... Anyone any advice?

doubtfir3

Noffles wrote: »

The missus has thoughs of building a pond in the garden... could be a built opne with breeze blocks or one of those kits... Anyone any advice?

I built one when I moved into my house in August last year.

Laid it our with a garden hose and then dug out the foundation and got foundation poured. Then built up walls with 6 inch (Im almost sure) cavity blocks and filled most of the holes in the blocks with concrete to give it more stability.

Then used the excavated earth as filler inside the pond and then put a layer of sand about 20mm on top of this.

I have a shelf running right around the pond and one very shallow shelf area with a second shelf done in another section for planting.

The pond itself is about 650-700mm deep.

I used an underlay and a liner then on top and filled it. Have a few plants in also but they went in late in the season so will finish planting now shortly.

I put a wide foundation on it as I hadn't decided whether to use stone cladding or to build a stone wall outside the pond.. when the money permits!

Then I put a waterproof box on the the fence near the pond and connected the pump, filter, fountain and light cables into it and connected them to an SWA which is run to the house.

In the house I have a 4 switch light switch which I use to turn on/off each item and will upgrade it in the future to incorporate timers and room for garden lights.

Pic attached. (liner excess trimmed since)

Feel free to PM for any more info.

doubtfir3

sorry forgot the pic!

bagels

pm sent

Rancid

doubtfir3, what type of pond liner did you use?

I'm in the early stages of pond building at the moment and intend to get the butyl liner as it's supposed to be strongest.

Anyone know the best/cheapest place to buy butyl in or around Dublin?

Tail Wagger

doubtfir3 wrote: »

sorry forgot the pic!

you did say a fish pond?

thats a fine looking pond, but looks quite big to me, I'd be afraid of a sunami if it burst. Any idea how many gallons of water?. I suppose when the project is finished with shrubs etc it will look the buiss.

yoshytoshy

Is it possible to build a small water feature/pond ,by using sand and sheeting ?
I was thinking of using sand to shape out things and then sheet with hozelock sheeting

looksee

Even though it looks high on the outside, it doesn't have to be that deep on the inside. Good for looking at, and somewhat toddler proof. I think you would have to check what size liner you could get though, and work inside that. That looks like one very expensive piece of liner! Edit - on second thoughts I think it is polythene? Would polythene do the job?

If we had another winter like the last one, would there be any danger of the ice cracking the structure? I just spent today removing cracked 'water-feature' pots I wonder would a layer of sheet polystyrene between the blocks and the liner create enough 'give' to stop it cracking?

doubtfir3

Rancid wrote: »

doubtfir3, what type of pond liner did you use?

I'm in the early stages of pond building at the moment and intend to get the butyl liner as it's supposed to be strongest.

Anyone know the best/cheapest place to buy butyl in or around Dublin?

I got the liner from http://www.watergardeningdirect.ie

35 Year Polyex Pond Liners 8.0m x 6.5m Permalay Underlay

I looked in the UK as well for a lot of stuff but settled on this one because of price. I actually ended up with a fair bit of excess because of the shape of the pond but will put this to good use as a weed barrier in other areas or may even look at doing a small water feature in my parents garden this summer.

looksee

Interesting about the liner, it looks more manageable than the stuff I bought which was so heavy it was hard to shape to the small area I was covering. Thanks for the link.

doubtfir3

Tail Wagger wrote: »

you did say a fish pond?

thats a fine looking pond, but looks quite big to me, I'd be afraid of a sunami if it burst. Any idea how many gallons of water?. I suppose when the project is finished with shrubs etc it will look the buiss.

Total is approx 5000 Litres so not something you'd want to be filling every day I suppose!

The plan is to use a stone cladding on the pond with a limestone cap and then to lay gravel all around a large area of the back garden with a patio nearby. In the fenced corner at the back I'm going to plant a butterfly garden and have some more plants which I'm hoping to add to the pond in the next while so have a few more bits to do yet!

Once the weather stays good for a few more days I'm hoping to get cracking on it quite soon.. going to be a busy month ahead of me!

doubtfir3

looksee wrote: »

Even though it looks high on the outside, it doesn't have to be that deep on the inside. Good for looking at, and somewhat toddler proof. I think you would have to check what size liner you could get though, and work inside that. That looks like one very expensive piece of liner! Edit - on second thoughts I think it is polythene? Would polythene do the job?

If we had another winter like the last one, would there be any danger of the ice cracking the structure? I just spent today removing cracked 'water-feature' pots I wonder would a layer of sheet polystyrene between the blocks and the liner create enough 'give' to stop it cracking?

Mine is approx 0.7m deep at the deep end with two shelves then to allow for planting.

If you look at the attached pic, section 1 is 2-4 inches deep, section 2 is approx 12 inches deep and then section three is approx 28 inches deep.

If you just had goldfish it would be fine to keep it shallow but I like Koi and so have a couple of those.. they like to have deeper water. And, for thinks like lillies its best to have the water a little deep.

Our last winder was shocking for sure.. I'm still getting up in the mornings to a frozen pond, but have have no problems with structure.. Especially over Christmas I've seen ice up to 4 inches thick on the pond (I was standing on it one morning!) but have just broken sections out and left it to melt in its own time, or else have left a small fountain running overnight to prevent it from freezing.

doubtfir3

yoshytoshy wrote: »

Is it possible to build a small water feature/pond ,by using sand and sheeting ?
I was thinking of using sand to shape out things and then sheet with hozelock sheeting

Do you intend doing this set into the ground or above ground? If its going to be dug then you can just dig down a bit and take out any sharp stones. Then put a layer of sand down and you can put in your underlay & liner.

If you're intending to this this above ground, I would mix some cement with the sand to get it to set, or else set up a frame of some sort and then put your sand inside that - otherwise I'd say it will just break down when you add the water.