Making Your Own Garden Pond

Having a pond in your yard or garden offers an attractive source for both plants and animals to get fresh water, and they can be aesthetically pleasing for humans as well. Making your own pond involves some work up front, but the effort can be worth it. You can even make your own pond, if you plan ahead carefully and follow through to the end.

First, mark out the pond shape that you want. You can use rope, a length of string, or other ways to mark out the pond shape before you start digging. This is mostly for your own benefit, since wildlife cares more about how clean the water is. You can make a pond that is ‘natural or ‘formal’ and it just depends on what looks good in your garden.

Don’t dig your pond very deep, no more than a couple of feet in the deep areas, and try to keep about 50% of your pond as shallow area. You don’t need to dig down especially deep unless you’re creating a fish ponds. Don’t worry about your pond freezing solid unless you’re living in an area where it becomes very, very cold for extended periods. Most wildlife prefers shallow waters, like tadpoles.

Before laying down a rubber liner, buy some underlay to provide insulation between the liner and the ground. Underlay can be bought from a home improvement store or garden center, just make sure you buy enough to lay down a double layer. Also make sure to remove any sharp or large stones.

As a last note, don’t use tap water to fill your yard pond. If you’re patient, waiting for rain water to fill the pond is an option, or you can collection rainwater in bins and buckets.