Garden ponds are a great way to add value to your home, enhance a garden, or just a great, quiet place to relax and unwind. Although a garden pond may seem expensive, a little D.I.Y. attitude can change that. I’ll show you some cheap and easy designs for garden ponds that you can build yourself easily and cheaply.
Many people think that garden ponds are expensive or require constant maintenance that is costly, but the fact of the matter is these are both myths. A garden pond requires less maintenance than a conventional indoor aquarium and in some cases may even be cheaper to purchase.
The simplest of all garden ponds is the small tub. With any watertight container, you can make a tub or container water garden. Purchasing a small underwater pump is the most expensive part. Simply place med sized gravel or stones into the container, followed by light fish gravel. A $5 bag of rocks and gravel will fill Two 5 gallon containers easily. Place the small underwater filter into the middle of the rocks. Run the plug up over the side of the container. Run the outlet hose up to the top of the container so that the water drains back into the container. Conceal the hoses with plants, rocks, or what ever your imagination thinks up. I have even seen one covered with bamboo stalks. Add water and one or two small fish if you want. Don’t add more fish than that, or add to large of fish. The smaller tank will be a little harder to maintain with more fish. Plants are easily supported in a small tank, but again, don’t over do it.
Another neat design is the plastic liner garden pond. Because plastic liners are very flexible, you are able to design any shape or size of garden pond. Its only limited to the size of your liner and your imagination. Kidney shaped pools are common but you can make circular, square, rectangle, even triangular! They can be easily installed by anyone willing to dig a hole in the ground and place a liner in. With a liner, you can also make a river or water fall. Simply add another liner in a small shallow ditch leading to your pond. Add an underwater pump in the pond and stretch the outlet hose to the other end of your “river”. Use rocks to disguise the liners bottom in the river and fine sand in the pond to complete the natural effect. Larger fish and more plants are easily added to the pond than a container pond will hold. Although the liner is around $100 it is still relatively cheap compared to a 25-gallon home aquarium, which is close in price just for the tank.
The great thing about a liner is you can always add more pond or streams easily with a little digging and careful concealment of wires and hoses. Its price is certainly a lot more than a container garden but you have more pond for the buck. If you’re limited to space a container garden is the way to go. After all, you can always buy more containers.
