The Three Ponds I've Built in Our Garden

As ponds seem to be of interest to many, I dug out my original thread from way back only to find, that all the photos which were on Photobucket only show as crosses.
I like many won't pay $99 a year for them to host them.
I can't get rid of the "crosses" on here.

As many I've no longer got, I've cut and pasted the original post and put in a dozen that I do have. It might be of interest to anyone who is contemplating having a pond in their garden.





First Pond 1976

This was my first effort, a pre-formed plastic pond I fitted into a brick-built “quadrant.”
The patio here is crazy terrazzo on a 5” thick concrete raft. Our soil is quite sandy, the houses too are built on concrete rafts and for our extension, the local authority made us have 8’ deep foundations.
I later removed this pond as I wanted a bigger one with a York stone surround so I also ripped out terrazzo and replaced it with matching stone.





Second Pond 1985


My wife wasn't too keen on giving up too much of the garden, so I was "restricted" to 12' X 9' pond while I was hoping for 15', that would have been a lot more water. But you have to compromise, don't you? The rocks would later form a rockery.





This is the second pond in construction. The easiest way to build a pond is to have a concrete collar, which means you can get all the levels right, then dig out the pond.
This one was a goldfish pond and only 18" deep. I'd started digging it out before I had the idea for a collar, it would have been better if I'd built the collar first, that would have meant less mess.

Note the DIY “rockery kit.”
A word on rockeries, it's best to arrange the rocks in layers like "strata" otherwise they can end up looking like a dogs' cemetery.



Bits of old pallets form the shuttering.



Collar complete ready for the liner. There's a fall of an inch in the collar away from the pool so nothing will run into it.



The edge is curved and I used a lot of damp newspapers to protect the liner.
It's best to unfold the liner and lay it out on the lawn to warm up a bit before attempting to fit it.




Fitting the liner and the coping stones.



There's an art to this, to avoid creases. You roughly fit the liner but don't have it touching the bottom of the pool. Place the coping stones loosely around the liner. As you fill the weight of the water will start to pull the stones towards the pool, if they're too heavy you can give them a nudge. This way the liner will always be under tension as the pool fills.





I found it best to paddle around in it making sure there were no creases, water is very heavy and it's very difficult to remove one by pulling on the liner, once there's six inches of water on top of it. You need the ability to do "hospital corners" if the pool is a rectangle. Job done. The imitation bridge was originally there as I was going to construct a shallow rill winding down to the pool to appear to enter "under the bridge."
But the War Department," decided it would be too much water.
I made the bridge out of concrete in a mold in the garage, with York stone facings. It's reinforced by a wire pan stand my wife wasn't using much at the time. She still doesn't know it's in there.



Job Complete.



There's a filter hidden behind the lamp on the left. There's an overflow to a house drain thirty feet away, the pipe is under the collar and the patio.





A 45 degree bend on the end of the pipe allowed me to regulate the level of the water by just turning it slightly, so I was able to "trickle change" the water at any time without the danger of it overflowing.
I considered this quite important as there can be times when you might want to change some of the water. By trickling in water overnight, you can restore clarity to a filterless green pond, without a sudden change in water quality which might be detrimental to both the fish and marginal plants. Anyway..Beats baling it out!







Third Pond 1986

I then got the “koi bug.”

Having taken advice from other koi keepers (the common thread always being; “If I were to do it again it wouldn’t be like this.”) I built an eight-foot square room in the back of the garage. In that I put a 300 gall “hospital tank" which has its own filter. I’ve also got a sink and hot and cold water supply. It also houses the main pond filters. The worst scenario for a “koi keeper” being coming home from work one dark and rainy night, to be told by your wife; “I think there’s something wrong with one of your fish.” …it's raining and all you’ve got is a bucket and a torch!





I then dug the pond out to to 5’ on my Jack Jones my wife mad me lots of cups of tea) with a spade barrowing the spoil up a scaffolding board into two giant skips. The pool has a bottom drain and pump sump. There are two pumps in a water butt that forms the pump sump which is set in concrete and connected to the bottom drain, one feeds the filter and the other is to drain it out to the drain outside the kitchen window. A 4” standpipe fits in a socket in the bottom of the butt while you empty it. When you pull it out, air pressure forces all the muck that collects in the bottom of the pool into the drain and up into the sump. You then replace the standpipe and pump it to waste.


The 4" X 2" uprights are screwed to the original concrete collar and there's a screed of concrete on the bottom which falls towards the centre drain. Roofing ply panels wrapped in heavy duty plastic are attached to the cling film covered posts. There's a layer of old carpet and cardboard between the panels and the liner. There's no degradation visible in the liner, even after thirty years.










Job done.
This photo is from 1987, after everything had settled down and I'd built the pagoda and the tea-house.



This from last year. Nothing much has changed other than, the height of that conifer on the rockery, the growth of the plants, a new post and panel fence, a new more substantial pergola and granite sets used to form the balustrade on the bridge.

 

Thanks for the kind words.
The pergola to one side was requested by my wife, as she said that she'd be a bit scared walking past the pool, (her MS had developed a few years before this) which if she fell in would come to near the top of her head. A handrail she said, would make her feel more secure.




A few weeks after I'd built it, I came home from work to find her on the rockery, "just doing a bit of pruning."

My filter is very old fashioned, foam and flowcore, but a lot of it. Four 40 gallon tanks and 12sq feet of foam. There's a lot of internal pipework to prevent tracking. The only maintenance is a purge of the bottom drain weekly and maybe a scrape of the foam every other year. The more it gets blocked the more efficient it becomes. Never had a leak. All push-fit polypipe connectors except for those which would be hard to get at, which have insulating tape wrapped round them too.

Technology has moved on, you can spend hundreds on fancy filters that need a lot of maintenance. My water quality readings are boringly consistently acceptable.




The top tanks are supported by eight lengths of scaffolding poles. There's a lot of pipework.







I made my own UV, they were very expensive back then, with a quartz tube I ordered by mail-order, a recycled light fitting and some plumbing accessories. Worked perfectly for three decades, with only a few changes of a conventional germicidal fluorescent tube, then I decided to get a more powerful one, why? I don't know, as I've never had green water. I've had three since then and lots of replacement tubes.







I've also got a 1000ltrs ph, air pump.

B & Q sell these decking squares, they ideal for any floor, where you need access to pipework below it. They sit on a frame and any can be pulled up.



This is my pump sump. The bit of key terrain pipe you can see fits into the purposely designed socket in the bottom of this big green water butt encased in concrete. A waste pump, pumps the contents to a drain under the kitchen window. First I turn off the filter pump suspended at the top of the sump. I then turn on the drain pump which sits on the bottom. When the sump is empty, I pull the pipe and 40gallons of water are forced up by the air pressure on the surface of the pool, including anything in or around the bottom drain, "even half a brick" you'd think by the rate it comes up. The standpipe then goes pack in and the contents again pumped to waste. The last dregs I remove with a wet n' dry, that's my azalea and rhodo fertilizer. The pipe comes out for the last time, it refills and I turn the filter back on. A five minute job. The sump prevents any coarse solids being pumped to the filter, it's what has to be frequently cleaned out in more "modern" systems.

Old photo





This is the only evidence of a filter system visitors can see
More recent photo, (I hadn't cemented in those granite sets yet, they were still "under consideration" for a replacement balustrade).

 

Your wife must be pleased that you are kept out of mischief out there - whilst supplying a lovely view from the back door.
I`m sure your experiences of pond building might be really useful for some - but a bit too technical for the likes of me - well, when it comes to all the pipework anyway

Please can you post a clearer picture of the tea house .......or else..... I shall tell your wife what happened to her pan stand ....

 

People might get sick of seeing this. You have to appreciate it's just a glorified shed. That's why we call it the tea-shed.

There you go.



The embellishments at all four corners of the roof are "enhanced" by half golf balls either side.





The two end doors can be folded inwards against the side wall. The centre door is secured by bolts into the floor and ceiling at each corner, so can be opened either way or completely removed. The floor is made of marine ply panels, but there's vinyl on the floor inside.



My Budweiser fridge. There's been some "gentrification" as there's a lot of Peroni in it too.

Old 14" TV and a Freeview box

You can see from here that the external windows are made from the same opaque plastic that is used in the doors, with hardwood beading stuck on to make individual panes. They are actually recycled suspended ceiling light diffuser panels.


.


There's a square section in the middle of the ceiling for access the top, but I usually stick a ladder up againt the side of the roof if I need to get up there to repaint the top. it has four walls up from the ceiling. The top is removable, but I can just prop it up at one end for a bit of ventilation in the summer. When it's raised I use two halves of an old dishwasher cutlery tray attached to a central block of 3" X 2" as a prop, it lets the air out, but not rodents in. You can just see it in the second photo. The top is very heavy.

Thirty years ago it had a clear plastic panel in it, but it wasn't really necessary, I've inset spotlights in the ceiling, I re-felted over it in case it ever leaked.




My jukeboxes.



This is the Rock-Ola clock I made, to hang on the wall.








A repro would have cost a fortune, so I bought one for a tenner that was like new on eBay and made the face myself. It was cheap I guess, as no one made a higher bid as they didn't like the original face

It was the Manchester United logo!

I got the Rock-Ola art work for the face from a fellow contributor to a jukebox enthusiasts message board. He lives in California and he kindly e-mailed them to me.

 

.....It`s no good, I shall never manage to make my shed look as good as that....you will just have to pop over and do it for me (I`ll make the tea).........don`t forget the pan stand...
......

 

Unfortunately, I don't have the time, I only do essential jobs now, like a bit of maintenance, I've no interest in more projects, if the weather's fine golf takes up much of the day, three times a week.

 

I hate golf!

 

Well, to be honest, I didn't take much interest in it until I retired, although I'd watch it on TV. My sport was squash, I used to play in the North West Counties Leagues for a club team until I was fifty, then gave it up because of recurring tennis elbow. When I took early retirement, my grown up kids ganged up on me and said "Don't go back playing a lot of squash, buy yourself some golf clubs!"

I'm about average for a club golfer. If I can get round in the low eighties as a gross score, I'm happy enough. It isn't a cheap game to start playing, or wasn't when I first joined my club, you had to pay a joining fee as well as your membership fee, so double for the first year. The joining fees have mostly gone now for many clubs. It costs me nearly £1,000 a year to play, but you can play pretty much as often as you like. If I added up what my clubs, bag and electric trolley cost, there'd be no change out of £1,500. But once you've swallowed all that and this set of clubs is about ten years old and the trolley older, there's not much more to spend. Just occasionally golf balls, (you find some on the course when you're looking for someone else's and you keep the good ones). I usually buy a pair of golf shoes each year as they do start to leak after a bit, I have three pairs on the go to give each a chance to dry out, but I buy them at Sports Direct and never pay more than fifty quid. We just wear mostly old clothes, to play, particularly in the winter. Food at the club is quite reasonably priced and the beer's discounted for members. I will only play on week-day morning with a regular dozen or so, when it isn't busy. I never play at the week-end unless I have to, it's too busy and it takes ages to get round as you get held up by the casual week-end golfers.

At my age, what else should I do with my money? All three of our kids are better off than we, two have holiday homes and the third an apartment in Canary Wharf.
A lot of the people with whom I play, are retired or work shifts and you always know someone in a trade where you can get a job done at "mates rates," like my car servicing and repairs and last year, a new central heating boiler.
We've a beautiful course and we see a lot off wildlife as we're walking round, moorhens, pheasants, a few rabbits, foxes, the occasional deer, herons, ducks and occasionally swans it's a pleasant way to spend three and a half hours.

and geese, often a flock of them.





The scene of my only hole in one, the green is small, beyond the two guys on the left. I've a friend who's had six but he's been playing since he was twelve.

 

@Doghouse Riley I really love your garden. I could live there quite happily. I attempted something similar once.



Unfortunately the conifers wouldn't takes and I couldn't afford to buy enough white gravel to complete the path. Its a shame I don't have any photos with the smoke bush behind the arbour. That was quite impressive while it lasted.

A couple of years back I even looked at pre formed pond linings. My wife has always wanted a pond of some kind. When the cat got hit on the road everything changed.

g.

 

Those were quite impressive, I liked the seat.

It reminded me of this screen I made before we had a new post and panel fence put up at the bottom of the garden. That was before the tea-house. Previously there had been a low fence with green wire netting.
From the other end of the garden it made it look as if the bit behind was ours too.

This would have been around 1988



The tree you can see next to the tea-house died, so I had to cut it down with a chain saw. We've a wisteria growing up the stump. (I don't always get things right) There was also a tall silver birch on the left, you can just see the trunk. It was a "plant a tree in 73" the kids brought home from school, but it was grafted one, so it too died after about 20 years.





The screen got binned when I chopped up the roots of some bamboo growing elsewhere in the garden and I turned it into our one foot deep "forest," as it is now.

 

The first Japanese garden I ever came across was at Compton Acre in Dorset. It had that wow factor. I also saw a nice one at a NT gardens in Congleton. I don’t recall the name off the top of my head.

The biggest and best one I ever saw as in Central Park in SAN Francisco. It was so peaceful. I could have lived there quite happily.



G.

 

I visited that Japanese garden at Compton Acres about 140 years ago - stunningly breathtaking it was too. I remember a more formal garden there too with a large rectangular pond - I think it was the Italian garden. We couldn`t actually walk around that pond as it was swarming with minute frogs, and there was no room for human feet.

 

There's one in at Bidulph Grange in Stoke.
Well, there's gardens representative of different countries there too.



Biddulph Grange Garden