A Lazy Man&#39;s Pond How To Construct One

!9#: A Lazy Man's Pond How To Construct One

So you do not fancy an above ground pond, there are plenty of options, you could build one using concrete.

1. This is a big challenge unless you happen to work in the building industry and have the skills. I am not saying amateurs can not achieve a nice pond I have seen some amazing fish ponds built by total beginners.

2. But I am idle, and the thought of a spade in my hand brings me out in a cold sweat, so it is back to the lazy mans way.

3. How about a pond liner, or a ready formed pool there are some fantastic designs out there, but my biggest problem is how do you finish the edges off on a ready formed structure.

We are going to talk about a pond liner today, there is still a lot of spade work involved, but I am going to tell you how to get out of this, and let someone else do the work for you.

Simple invite a few mates around armed with a spade each, make sure you have some wheel barrows handy. Give them a couple of trays of beer and find an excuse to go out somewhere, a pretend hospital appointment is always a good one to use.

The easiest way to determine your design is to lay a hose pipe on the ground roughly in the shape you want, or trail handfuls of sand into the desired effect. Look sympathetically at your mates apologize profusely about you having forgotten this hospital appointment and leave quickly.

After two or three hours return, and hopefully they will have finished the hole in the ground for you. You can then take over still delegating jobs if need be, when it is completely finished drive your friends home because they will be over the limit now, and that is it, all the hard work done and you are just left with the easy job of completing the pond.

When you purchase your pond liner tell the guy in the shop how big the pool is going to be, because you will need a fair bit of excess material.

1. You will have to have some sort of protection on the ground for the liner otherwise, it could be punctured by sharp stones or the like.

2. Roofing felt is a good material to use, just lay it in the bottom of the hole and overlap it where necessary, the ground covering I like to use is loft insulation it is pretty cheap and simple to put down.

3. Now it is just a case of laying the liner on top of the covering, you may need a hand to do this because it can be fairly heavy.

Do not cut any excess of yet, rig your hose pipe up and start to fill with water, smoothing creases out with you hands, you do not have to do this but I am a bit fussy and I like to see as few creases as possible.

Let the water run into the pond until you have your desired height, this will stretch the liner and it will fill all of the nooks and crannies.

You have to decide what sort of edging to use now, there are a multitude of materials you could use, but by far the easiest and quickest is paving slabs.

Lay the slabs onto a bed of mortar ( mixed sand and cement ) directly onto the pond liner edges this is basically just to stop them rocking when walked on.

When this is done you can trim the excess liner off, that is it your pond is finished.

Do not put fish into the pool yet tap water has chlorine in it, deadly to fish, you can buy a product from your pet shop to get rid of chlorine, it is not too expensive and well worthwhile.

Leave the pool as it is for five to seven days for all of the chlorine to be removed from the water.

Now is the really good bit, go and buy your fish plants and a water fountain if you want one, I like to see them in a pool it just gives the water that little something extra.

Put your plants in your pond you may have to stand them on a brick to get them to the height you require, put the water fountain in, remember water and electricity do not mix, so get some qualified help here.

Then it is a matter of putting the fish in the pond, get a deck chair and your favourite tipple sit back and enjoy.

But that is not the end of the story, you have still got masses to learn get yourself a good book on general pond maintenance, and study it.

Before I forget your friends will only fall for helping you out the once, so make sure the pond is the size you really wanted, as you may have difficulty getting them back again.