To have a water oasis in our garden without the mess of an ordinary water fountain or pond, the best option is to make a still pot, also called a pond pot. A pond pot doesn’t need a pump or a filter, so we don’t need to plug it to an outlet, and we can locate the pot wherever we want. This is a very easy garden project, and it will cost us what we really want to spend depending of the materials we use, but it can be very cheap.
A still pot or pot pond is basically a container filled with water and decorated with water plants. The first step to make one is choosing the container.
The size for a pot pond depends of the amount of water plants that we want to add to it. For a couple of plants, we should use a nine inches in diameter pot, and de deep should be around ten inches. We can choose almost any container to host our pot pond, the only requirement it must have is that can hold water. If we decided to use wood, as in barrels, we should use plastic linen inside it, to avoid the excessive growing of bacteria. I would advice to use items we love as containers, as antiques and things we find in yard sales. Wash tubs, ceramic old sinks or copper buckets are perfect to contain a still pot fountain. We can use plastic containers, or ceramic plant pots, even old kitchen pots.
After we choose our container for the pot pond, it is time to decide what kind of plants we want to add to it. If we go for floating plants, as hyacinths, we’ll have fewer problems with algae. It will be good if we add some grass that grows in the bottom of the container, to help to keep the correct ph balance. Water lilies need more space and a deeper container, but they will reduce algae excess.
To decorate the pot pond we can add some pond pebbles, rocks or even aquarium gravel. Little water proof figurines can look beautiful in our still water pot fountain.
It is possible to enjoy fishes I our garden even if we don’t have an ordinary pond. We can add fish to our pot pond, and they will help us reducing algae. Koi fish is not recommended for pot ponds, because the need a more controlled environment that a still pond, but goldfish is a hardy enough fish to thrive in our pot pond. If we want to have a beta fish, we have to remember to have only one, because they are very aggressive fishes and more than one will fight to death.
The cleaning of the pot pond is fairly easy, we should clean the algae when it grows too much, trim the water plants when they grow too big, and feed the fish. If our pot pond is getting too dirty, we should empty it and clean it. We should add fertilizers in the plants from time to time, being careful with the fish.
One of the most popular objections to the still water fountains is that they can attract mosquitoes. The way to avoid this is to add some repellent pellets to the water, and keep it clean.
In the coolest part of the winter, it will be best to move the pond pots inside, to protect them from freezing.
Pot ponds are an easy and cheap way to enjoy water in our garden, and can be a fun weekend project.
