Croaking frogs in the bank grass, small hovering insects above the sun-reflecting water surface - many garden owners rightly wish for this pure idyll. How to build a natural pond in the garden yourself? Here's a little guide.
Naturally beautiful: the natural pond in the garden
What preparations you need to make
The desire to have your own, natural pond in the garden can sometimes turn into blind enthusiasm. Careful planning is essential, especially if you want to build your own. For one, you will enjoy your water oasis more and longer when depth management and planting planning result in a self-sustaining biotope.
On the other hand, there may be legal things to consider in order to avoid trouble with the authorities from the outset.
The essential pre-planning steps are:
- suitable choice of place
- combination of plants that is biologically sensible and at the same time corresponds to your taste
- Depending on the planned pond size and depth, obtain a building permit if necessary
The choice of location when building a pond in the garden is not just a matter of design. A certain amount of sunlight is also beneficial. In order to provide the pond plants with enough light and at the same time to prevent excessive heating of the water, which promotes algae, the pond area should have around 6 hours of sunshine per day.
For a natural pond, an informal, rounded but not too meandering shape is recommended. The selection of plants should - in adaptation to the different pond zones - aim at a good biological balance. After all, a filter pump system for water purification does not belong in a natural pond. In addition, it is beneficial to plan as many plants as possible for the shallow water zone. Because they absorb nutrients from the pond floor and the water, they have a cleaning and oxygen-promoting effect.
The building
If everything is well planned, you can start building. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Dig out the trough
2. Lay out with protective fleece and pond liner
3. Create gravel bed
4. Planting
5. Fill with water
The excavation
When digging the hollow in the pond, you create the classic depth zones either in a step-wise descending manner or in more flowing transitions. These are:
1. The swamp zone - up to 20 cm deep
2. The shallow water zone - 20 to 60 cm deep
3. The deep water zone - 60 to about 120 cm deep
Lay out the trough with a protective fleece and a pond liner, which you weigh down and conceal with a bed of gravel and, if necessary, with larger stones at the edges. If the soil is very stony and perhaps heavily rooted, you should dig a little deeper and work a layer of building sand under the foil.
The planting
Then you can start planting. The beautiful yellow flowering marsh marigold or the frog spoon are suitable for the swamp zone. The important shallow water zone can be well planted with calamus, heart-leaved pikeweed, arrowhead or angelfish. In the middle, the deepest water zone, there is mainly space for water lilies.
tips
If you also want to let fish live in your natural pond in a manner appropriate to their species, a minimum size of around 6 square meters and a mean depth of around 1.20 meters is required. This gives the animals enough space and the opportunity to retreat, even in winter when the pond may freeze over.