Even though there are several forms of water garden such as fountains or other forms of formal garden structures, we will be primarily discussing biologically balanced water gardens that are usually contained in outdoor landscaped environments. Though water gardens can be incorporated into existing natural water sources, such as creeks, ponds, etc., the most common form of water garden is a self contained body of water that contains the combination of water, fish, and aquatic plant life all forming a biological balanced aquatic environment.
As we will discuss later, the best controlled water garden is one that has a secure body of water free from leaks or conditions causing continual loss of water. As we'll soon begin to discuss, the manageability of water quality and a fish safe environment is dependent on the control of your water's stabile condition. Frequent loss and replacement of water causes a difficulty in the control of your water's quality and environment.
So, in short, a water garden would comprise of a self contained body of water formed by a flexible or pre-formed liner along with hardy fish and aquatic plants all to form a balanced aquatic environment.
How big or small to build a water garden is simply a question for the person desiring to indulge in the fun of water gardening. Water gardens can be as small as a 20-30 gallon container placed on a patio or deck, 3'x4' in-ground water garden tucked into the landscape, or a 10'x30' extensive water garden to include a wide range of recirculation features to transfer water for filtering, oxygenation, sound, and/or action.
We, at Evergreen of Johnson City, have come to find most, who build their first water garden, soon wish they has constructed one larger and soon thereafter plan on building a larger water garden.
I feel that there is a place for all sizes of water garden. I usually suggest to begin small and look for a place in your garden that a small water garden will be permanent and enjoyable. Larger water gardens can follow in other areas of the garden if the your experience with your first water garden leads you to furthering your water garden experience.
Building a
Step #1: What type of pond you want to build
First consider what type of aquatic life you want in the pond. Are you particularly wanting to have goldfish or koi or is your primary desire to have aquatic plants? Perhaps you main interest is creating the sound of a waterfall.
Each type of pond will need to be planned for its specific features.
KOI POND
A water garden to contain koi is different from a some water gardens because koi limit the amount of plant life available to be grown. Simply put: koi eat some plants. A koi pond should also be larger because koi get quite large despite the size of the pond, it is recommended that a koi pond be no less than 1000 gallons in volume, the bigger the better. It also needs to have an area of the pond at least 3 feet deep. Smaller water garden with will have you relocating your Koi to larger bodies of water once their faster growth have caused them to outgrow the space in the smaller body of water.
Water gardens typically contain both goldfish and a variety of aquatic plants. Water gardens in our area of TN usually need for an area of the pond to be approximately 2 feet deep and in some cases can be built slightly shallower to 18". A rule of thumb that Evergreen of Johnson City usuallyis that 50% of the water garden's surface area being contained the deeper 24" zone of water and the remaining 50% of surface area consist the shallower areas from 10" - 18" which will make positioning marginal aquatic plant life easier. Fish also enjoy the water areas of these shallow water body areas and often associate these areas with feeding periods.
Step #2: Selecting the
The single most important rule in selecting a water garden's location is to position it where you can enjoy, view, and interact with it easily, often being close to the home. Keeping a pond close at view will allow you to view it's beauty to include birds and butterflies.
Position the pond where runoff from rain will not flow into the pond. This may carry fertilizers, chemicals, and organic debris into the pond. It may be necessary to alter the terrain to accommodate this. Avoid placing a pond too close to large body of trees, even though select placement near areas that can receive select break periods from the hot afternoon sun is beneficial. The general rule is to have at least 4-6 hours of direct sunlight if you want to have successful water lily blooming. Fallen leaf debris will have to be to be removed from the water garden, so keeping from infestations of trees would be advised. Heavier amounts of shade is fine for fish-only ponds.
Water circulation is not essential but the use of a pump will allow you to keep more fish and will assist in keeping aquatic plants healthier. Pumps are required to run a filter, fountain, or waterfall. The sound of running water adds greatly to the enjoyment of the pond. Most ponds will benefit from the use of a biological filter, but it's not entirely necessary for a successful water garden. A lot depends on the level of water quality you desire to have. Ponds containing Koi are more dependent on higher quality levels are usually require the use of a biological filter supported by a recirculation pump.
Step #3: Laying Out & Shaping the
Once you have selected the location of your water garden, you can use a water hose or rope to lay out the shape on the ground, or you can paint out the shape of your desired water garden. Remember to consider the location of your deeper water zone as well as the shallower water zones. Above we referenced goldfish being best adapted to 18-24" depth of water where Koi required a deeper zone of water to 3' primarily to allow more space for the larger growing Koi.
Remember, most people end up wishing they made their water garden larger. A larger pond is more stable and easier to maintain. Keep in mind that a finished pond or water garden will be about 30% smaller than you visualize it. After you have laid out the shape, measure the maximum length and width. Add the depth twice to these measurements plus a foot or two for overlap and this will give you the pond liner size.
Step 4: Digging the
Once you've marked out and shaped your water garden, you'll need to dig a shelf shelf around the perimeter of the pond about one foot deep and one or more feet wide. Next mark out where you'll position the deeper and shallower zones of the water's depth. Dig the remaining areas below the shallower shelf providing a slight slope to the end opposite the waterfall if one is included in the design.
Remember, no matter where you position area of the deeper water, many designers will position it farther away from the incoming water source if a creek or fall is designed in the water garden system. Remember to position the pump's location on the opposite end of the incoming recirculated water.
Once you'd determined where the deeper zones of the water garden are, you can widen the upper 12" shelf area, described in the beginning of this topic, to create expanded shallow areas to position marginal aquatic plants, so don't feel that the shallow area needs to be kept in one area of the water garden.
Step #5: Installing Liner
Once you have totally excavated your water garden, you'll next need to prepare for the installation of the liner under-layment and rubber liner. The under layment is a protective fabric used to protect the liner from sharp objects that may exist along the excavated soil area. Evergreen of
After this protective fabric has been installed, you'll need to position the rubber liner into the excavated area in a way to work about, as many wrinkles as possible, but don't worry about these too much. Later we will talk about calculating the needed liner size and about the rubber liner that are available at Evergreen of
Once the water has been added, these folds and wrinkles will be rarely noticed and the natural discoloration to the pond's basin will camouflage to appear more natural. It's best to accumulate extra liner into larger folds and pull out wrinkles as the water is filled.
Remember, when your ready to add the liner into the excavated pit, it's important to know where any type of water fall, creek, or biological filter is to be positioned in relation to this water garden. In these areas, an overlap amount of liner is required to extend under filters installed along the perimeter of the water garden or below lined creeks or water falls to ensure that the recirculating water source is contained within the liner's design.
Step #5: & Positioning Filters, Falls, & Creeks
Once you have completed the installation of your main basin's liner, you can layout the position of any filters, waterfalls, and/or creeks if you desire to include in your water garden's design. Creeks are one of the easiest forms of circulating systems and are very easy to excavate and line. Just keep in mine a variable grade to your creek providing some elevation changes where site provides and provide a little twist and turn when space provides. Creeks are simple to line using the same rubber liner used in the main water garden's basin. Widths from 3' to 6' wide are usually needed for most creeps. Be sure to try to manage a liner depth of appx. 12" to minimize the creek's sensitivity to build up of debris such as leaves, etc.
When positioning water falls or biological filters, remember to position these in areas opposite to the pump's position to provide a good water circulation. Where these filters or creeks will be designed and associated with the water garden's perimeters, the pond's liner will need to overlap as needed to ensure water containment.
Step #6: Edging or Coping the
The next and final step in building your water garden is to naturalize and/or decorate it's perimeter to provide a naturalistic appearance. In most cases, types of stone, whether fieldstone, river rock, or naturally harvested stone from your area, is used to position around the perimeter of the water garden to hide the rubber liner most exposed around the perimeter.
As directed above, a 12" shelf was designed around the perimeter of the water garden which is used to stack stone within to assist in camouflaging the liner to appear to be less man made. We do not suggest the use of concrete in this area due to it's ability to provide difficulty in managing water pH level. Use a combination or series of stone that can be stacked in a way to not tumble chancing damaged to the liner below. At the surface of the pond's edge, you can either use a more tumbled style of stone coping or a more uniform cap or stone coping. You can choose to use mortar or concrete in this area that is above the water containment area for stabilization especially where traffic or or standing may occur.
This camouflaging of the pond's lined perimeter aids not only in the exposure of the sun to the water garden liner, but also to provide a water fluctuation area so that minor water level fluctuation doesn't expose the liner to viewers. This is an important design principal that we emphasis at Evergreen of Johnson City.
After you have laid out the shape of your water garden, measure the maximum length and width of the hole you have dug. Add the depth twice to these measurements plus a foot or two for overlap and this will give you the pond liner size.
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At times, you'll need to know your water garden's water volume especially when needing to apply certain products such as beneficial bacteria, dechlorinators, etc. It's easy to calculate the volume of water. The following is a calculation to follow to calculate your water garden's volume.
· Multiply the Length x Width x Depth of the water garden (L' x W' x D')
· Multiple the above answer by 7.5 to get the total gallons
Example: A water garden is 8' long x 5' wide by 2' deep
8 x 5 x 2 = 80 cubic ft. x 7.5 = 600 gallons of water volume
Care of a
Water gardens are often believed to be high maintenance part of a landscape, but I'll attempt to explain different. We have found water garden to be one of the simpliest and easier areas of care that are contained in a landscape.
One of the important factors to remember is that a constant, stabile body of water is easier to maintain, meaning that leaks or frequent losses of water causes difficulty in managing overall water quality.
There is a natural balance that acquires with stabile bodies of water where the proper parameters are designed meaning that water quality can, in many ways, be a naturally acquired state; however, some minor interaction with you is required.
Generally, it's suggested to keep high amounts of organic debris from washing or blowing into the water garden. This would include dormant aquatic plant material such as in the fall and winter.
Organic matter in the water will decay emitting amount of ammonia into the water. This ammonia is a form of nitrogen which will be like fertilizer to Algae which is a plant growing faster when fed by nitrogen. Less organic debris, less fertilizer, less Algae.
When feeding fish, always feed amounts that can be eaten by the fish within appx. 5 minutes. Any excess waste not eaten is high in fat content and can also cause problem to water quality. Excessive amounts of fish in your water garden can also cause problems with water quality since fish also put off ammonia from their gills as well as their waste. This doesn't mean that fish should not be used, but if you begin to experience increased problems with Algae as your fish load begins to increase, this may be the problem. Refer to the topic of using beneficial bacteria to learn how you can manage the negative effects of organic debris and ammonia.
Usually, when you feel like you should totally clean out your water garden, that's when you should simply leave it alone. There are amounts of beneficial bacteria that are present and lost during total clean outs, so we highly recommend only performing total clean outs when you absolutely have too. This can range from 1 to 3 years. The use of beneficial bacteria will assist in managing lower levels of organic waste, known as bio-waste in the pond's floor.
If your water garden consists of biological filter(s), you'll need to manage and clean as needed. The interval of these cleanings will depending on the style and size of the biological filter and by the volume of fish that you have emitting causing heavier amounts of bio waste into the water garden. The main things to remember is that the bio-mass waste that collects in the base of biological filters is the main thing that your trying to clean. You'll want to remove filter sponges rinsing them off and lighting ringing them out, but not washing with soap. Scoop out the amount of waste from the base of the filter, and reassemble the filter's contents back into their normal order. This frequency should be done when the bio-mass cavity has no more room to collect the waste and when filter sponges don't allow normal water flow to more through. Depending on certain variations, this can be done from 1 - 6 month intervals.
Controlling Algae & Green Water
Algae can many times seem to be impossible to manage. Most of the principles of algae control is quite simple when you understand the needs that Algae require. Eliminating as many of these needs can help to reduce lots of types of algae.
Let's first discuss two main categories of algae. First there are forms of algae that cause water clarity to appear brown or greenish. In many cases, the greening caused in the water is algae blooming and thriving. Secondly, there are forms of stringy algae that are the most difficult and often require to simply manage their existence to a controlled level. This is the category that provides the most difficulty and much research is still being done on the method so of controlling stringy algae. I will be focusing on the main and most effective control of the most common algae causing poor water clarity.
Algae, being a plant, requires space "water", light, and nutrients. Since space or water area can't be restricted, you have to control the two areas that can be altered being light and nutrition. Light input into the water's surface can be restricted by the proper positioning of the water garden by restricting it's exposure to full sun for a period of the day from 4 to 8 hours in lieu of all day exposure or areas beyond 6-8 hours. Other ways to control light exposure is by manipulating aquatic plants such a water lilies or tropical covers such as water lettuce or water hyacinths. For temporary uses in early spring, a long lasting blue dye can be added to the water to reduce the amount of sunlight penetration into the water until aquatic plants can be effective. It's recommended to have 50% of aquatic plant coverage over the total water surface unless forms of filtrations are utilized.
The control of nutrition is managed by proper feeding habits and by minimizing amounts of organic debris from entering the water garden. Another very and highly effective method of controlling algae's nutrition is with the use of beneficial bacteria. One that Evergreen of Johnson City highly recommends and offers is "Microb-Lift" a highly effective liquid blend of beneficial bacteria. These bacteria assist in breaking down biological waste in turn minimizing the release of ammonia into the water. This is how you effectively control the nutrition required by algae. With most bacteria products, weekly applications are required for the first 4 weeks and then monthly applications are required thereafter.
Aquatic plants are very important to assist in achieving an ecological balance in the water garden. You can choose whether to minimize the involvement of aquatic plants in the pond, or you can utilize extensive use of aquatic plants benefiting from not only their ecological benefits but also their beauty and features of foliage and flower.
Aquatic plant consist of four categories being ones that exist in the deeper areas of the water garden such as water lilies and water lotus, marginal aquatics that include a wide range of aquatic plants that are positioned in the shallower areas of the water from 6-12", floating aquatic plants such as the tropicals such as floating water lettuce and water Hyacinths, and last, but not least, the oxygenating underwater plants such as Anacharis. This underwater plant uses up nutrients that would otherwise feed the algae and disperses oxygen directly into the water.
Other benefits of plants are for protective coverage and harboring for fish to protect themselves from predators. Also, certain plant provide effective spawning areas for fish to lay and fertilizer eggs providing continual development of new fish.
Remember, strong bloomers such as water lilies and water lotus prefer to be fertilized monthly during the growing season to promote strong and regular blooming. This is done by inserting slow release tablets into the root zone or soil area of the lily or lotus.
Coping with
There are a variety of the predators that can be a problem to the water garden mainly with potential harm to fish life. One of the most common categories are predatory birds which contain the most common two being the Blue Heron or the Kingfisher. The Blue Heron is the most common threat in our area are prey as individuals due to their competitive territory nature. Two of the most common techniques are either netting the water garden with a course netting being positioned along the top of the water basin and secured along the stone perimeter or by using the placement of a fake Blue Heron that often keeps other Herons away.
Another predatory that is seemingly less known is the snapping turtle. Female snapping turtles often take traveling excursions during the spring months, usually May - early June, to find new bodies of water to lay their eggs next to the edge. The female will usually inhabit body of water using the fish and other wildlife, even some aquatic plants, to serve as their food source. I have personally had experience with this situation and has a repeated attempt from another traveling turtle the following season that I came across before she was able to inhabit my water garden.
Large bull frogs can also be a threat to fish life. Usually this has to be very large bull frogs which can, at times, be a threat to the smaller gold fish eating them whole. Frogs are not considered to be one of the major treats to water gardens and are one of the accepted aquatic life forms that do frequently inhabit water garden environments.
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Water garden benefit from the proper preparation for the late fall and winter months. One of the most important preparation procedures to remember is to net over the water garden basin where nearby trees may cause fallen leaves to blow into the water.
As mentioned before, leaves and other organic debris that enter the water will develop into large amounts of decaying matter which in turn emits dangerous gases and high ammonia levels. during ice over periods, gases emitted from decaying matter can be trapped under the ice causing potential harm to the fish life. Also, remember to cut back and clean up dormant aquatic plant life and discard all tropical floating aquatic life such as water lettuce and water hyacinths.
Ornamental Fish for a
Hardy fish such as goldfish and koi not only become pets to their owners, but also contribute to the water garden by eating algae and particularly insects and larvae. Fish become a delightful addition to the water garden offering a great colorful reason to watch a water garden's life and action and particularly are enjoyed by kids.
Stock a new water garden at the rate of one inch of fish per every 8 gallons of water, waiting 3 to 4 weeks after introducing plants (this allows necessary bacteria to populate the pond). We also suggest initially adding supplemental bacteria to the water garden to initiate the initial stock bacteria amount which is highly beneficial to fish life.
It's important to always dechlorinate your water before adding fish and anytime you have to add any more than 20% of your total water volume to ensure no danger cause by the harmful chlorine.
* Note - Be sure to always keep a bottle of dechlorinator on hand just in case of emergency.
This is very important!
The first couple of seasons you have your water lilies the blossoming will be outstanding, possibly even better than you had hoped. But as the years progress, you will notice a lessening in the flowering, even though you continue to fertilize regularly. This downturn is your cue to divide your water lilies, giving them more room and fresh soil. If you live i the hot regions of the sunbelt, you may need to divide and report your hardy water lilies annually.
Spring is the best time of the your to divide and transplant your water lilies. Watch them early in the spring as the weather begins to warm. Notice new growth coming from the crown of each plant.
When these leaves are approximately half way to the surface of your pond, it is time to divide. Lift each plant container from your pond.
1. Remove plant and rinse soil off of the rootstock.
2. Rootstock will have a main growing tip and some juvenile growing tips visible on a large rootstock.
3. Cut off old rootstock end, leaving 4" - 6" of healthy rootstock with the main growing tip. Discard old woody rootstock end.
4. Cut off juvenile crowns.
5. Repot trimmed rootstock (using Liltabs) and replace in your pond.
6. Discard Juvenile growing tips, or pot them in a 3.5 quart soil container. Grow with 2" - 4" of water over the soil.
7. Increase water cover (lower container in your pond) to a 12" - 18" as stems grow; allowing pads to float on surface.
8. They will be blooming size this season or next.
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