The Perfect Pond Recipe by Peter J. May

Although we have started a series of articles guiding you through the basics of building a pond, we thought that we would start the new year by going back to basics just so that the there are a few practical considerations well and truly catered for before we actually get much further.
For those of you considering building your first pond, or for those of you who have built your first pond and it looks as though you may have to start again, here is very early article written by Peter May that aims to introduce the novice to some of the most important ingredients to consider when creating a perfect water garden.

WHATEVER THE PROBLEM, HERE IS THE SOLUTION - THE PERFECT POND RECIPE

Spirogyra or blanket weed has completely taken over Does your pond look like the grave of a Swamp Thing? Or does the water look like it contains the swill from some riotous goblin party with green slimey candy floss and vile unctuous jelly? IfLilies Water Gardens;A Time to Reflect;Hampton Court 2006- An ideal to strive for. so, it might be because some essential ingredient is missing, or there might be too much of some and not enough of another.
Perhaps you haven't even attempted a water garden yet, but it had crossed your mind because you know it would make the perfect focal point in your garden. You haven't attempted it yet because you thought you might make a mess of it.
Fear not. All you need is the correct ingredients in the right quantities. Just mix them together. Wait a while – a long while, like a month or more -, Hey Presto! You have made a world that is virtually self-sufficient and attractive in all but the very darkest months of the winter.

 AIM

Your aim is to create an attractive water garden. So, if it is yet to be created, because water gardens are expensive features (even using the most basic of ingredients), plan and budget it from start to finish.
If you wanted to make a cake, there are certain places where it is best to create it, e.g. the kitchen, and there are other places where it would be awkward to create it, for instance in the bathroom. With certain compromises and provisos it would be possible, but you would have to run extension leads everywhere and get the old man out of the bath, get a work surface and so on...... So where do you make a water garden ? Well, let me tell you.

SITE

Golden Pond;Chenies Aquatics; Brian Toms;Hampton Court 2002 - an ideal using a designer's eye for colour.The site of a water garden is one of the most fundamental ingredients for its success.Leaves in a pond not only put a strain on the biological balance, some can be very toxic.
The pool should be in full sun. Nearly all plants associated with water need a good dose of direct sunlight in order to flower. ( For readers living south of the UK - this doesn’t necessarily apply. In countries like South Africa, an area of dappled shade over the water garden will at least take some of the strength out of a hot midsummer sun and reduce the burden on any filtration system.)
It should be away from trees particularly if prevailing winds are likely to carry the leaves into the water. They will begin to rot almost immediately in a process that uses up huge amounts of the oxygen in the pool water. If this gets used up, the rotting process pollutes the water with ammonia and nitrite minerals, which will kill many fish and wild life. But without even considering this, the leaves of the Willow, Elder, Poplars, Yew, Laburnum and Oak are toxic even in small quantities - so keep away from them.
Avoid siting the pool where it may be exposed to the north or cold prevailing winds. Many water garden plants are up early in the year and although they are quite hardy, the effect of a bracing spring north-easterly on fresh optimistic new growth is no less merciful than a mechanical flail.
Avoid the low-lying boggy bit of the garden. This where all the fertilisers, pesticide and herbicide residues gravitate to. Also if it rains and the water table rises sufficiently, thismay have the effect of popping preformed pools out of the ground, or in flexible liner pools, producing what looks like a basking hippo below the water surface.
If you have to make do with an area like this, make sure any edging is cambered back, shedding water and pollutants away from the water’s edge.

OTHER PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS

A sensitive trip switch in a dry weatherproof situation is essentialConsider accessibility to a water supply for filling and topping up, not that you want to be doing this a lot because a you will find out mains water is not too good for the balance of your pond water.Water mains pipes have been unearthed whilst excavating this demonstation pool at a water garden centre
If you are considering fountains or waterfalls as part of the feature, fixing up a safe electricity supply can be a major drain on the financial resources of the project. If you have not already got an outside mains loop separately fused from the domestic supply, with its own RCCB trip switch, get some advice from an electrician.
In the design, leave space and access for a filtration system even if you have not yet considered one. See what size of filter box will need to be landscaped into the feature to cope with your pool's volume of water and make sure there is enough spare power supply and connections can be made to another pump.
Since we spend half the year looking at our gardens from inside the house it may be more rewarding to have a view of at least part of the water garden from the house. Lighting effects with moving water can be particularly effective for those long dark nights. Consider those now before the new landscape is created.
ALSO A VISIBLE POND IS A SAFER POND. This is a primary consideration if there are children in the family, extended family or even in the neighbourhood. The majority of accidents with children and ponds occur in the gardens of friends, relatives or neighbours and not in their parents’ own gardens. Children from 18 months to three years are most at risk. An ingredient you definitely don’t want in your pond.
Then having settled on the perfect site, check for bedrock, drainage pipework, electrical cables or tanks because, 'Murphy's law' dictates that if you don’t check at the planning stage then you will find something as soon a you start and it wont be Cap'n Kidd's lost treasure.

DESIGN

This 8ft by 4ft preformed pool is about as small as you can go if you want to mantain a perfectly balanced pond Consider the size first. It needs to have a minimum surface area of at least 30sqft (2.8sqmtrs) with a minimum depth of 18 ins (45cm). If you are planning to keep Koi carp, then you will need much more, a minimum depth of 3 feet to start with. The larger the pool area the more steady and balanced it will be.
Keep the shape simple especially if you are using a liner. Fancy indentations use up excessive amounts of liner and create unsightly folds. A simple shape allows the natural convection currents in the water to flow everywhere preventing stagnating dead spots.
Around at least 1/3 rd of the inside edge of the pool, at about 9 or 10ins (25cm) depth and 10ins (25cm) width, there should be a shelf i.e. a level area in the pool profile, to support a range of plants classified as the marginals.
With streams and waterfalls: keep them in proportion to the pool. You do not want to end up with the pool half empty every time you turn on the stream; neither do you want to turn over more than the total volume of the pool water every hour. This causes too much commotion and stress for the plants and fish. So choose a pump that will produce the correct volume of water to the required height. (You can read forthcoming articles on choosing the right pump very soon.)
So, within these constraints the design is up to you. Look to the wonderful creations at the big flower shows ( such Chelsea and Hampton Court) for a whiff of inspiration. Do not look for practical inspiration though,Circ Contemporary Man's Garden, Andy Sturgeon, Chelsea Flower Show 2001: An 'evergreen' image that will carry on through the passage of time, but it is totally impractical for the normal garden. because a lot of them are not very sensible for long-term water gardens. Avoid getting carried away with pools completely lined out with pebbles or paddle stones. The bottom of the water garden becomes obscured within three months anyway. Be wary of designs that don’t seem to feature a lot of water plants unless you have a mind to indulge a large filtration system.

MATERIALS: LINERS, PUMPS, FILTERS etc.

Get products fit for the purpose. Cheap submersible pumps may not be cost effective. Get your advice and materials from a reliable retailer close to home. This way, if some thing does not quite "perform to specifications" then you can take it back and get him to deal with it in a way that you see fit, thus gaining an instant and effective response ! WARNING: cheaper materials are fraught with inadequacies. It is a world in which stiff competition has produced a range of products of varying specifications for different applications and individual depths of pocket. In the quest for durability and longevity, the consumer roughly gets what he or she pays for. When it comes to pumps, the running costs are s a very important factor now in the cost equation of a pump. You will find cheaper pumps cost significantly more to run over a long period than the more expensive pumps that often have much longer guarantees as well. More advice on these ingredients will be coming very soon.

THE FOUR GOOD REASONS WHY EVERY GARDENER MUST HAVE A WATER GARDEN

At last the essential ingredients for every water garden: Plants
Assuming you are now the proud owner of a watertight hole in the ground, now you can fill it with water. If the water is dead flouridated, chlorinated tap stuff, then fill the pool and leave it to stand. After two or three days it will have 'aged' enough to receive the most sensitive of plants. The process in which the microbial world gets established may be speeded up if you add a couple of gallons of water from a pond that you know to be well-established and healthy. This works rather like a yoghurt starter, getting the biological ball rolling. This can take anything from a further month to three months, depending on the weather and the season.
Now you want to cover two thirds of this area with plants. Oh yes you do. If you don’t then you must get yourself a biological filtration system now and don’t even hope you will get clear water until you do.

There are four groups of plants essential for every water garden :-
Laragasiphon major or curly pond weed, you may not believe it but it the best oxygenating weed.Oxygenators, deep water plants, and marginal plants. There is also a range of floating plants, which can be
useful; some like duck weed are best avoided like the plague.
Oxygenators are by far the most important of all these groups. Their presence inhibits the formation of green water and blanket weed. These are just different forms of algae that are in competition for the same nutrients and light that the oxygenators use. The oxygen that is provided by oxygenators during the process of photosynthesis is used by the essential bacteria, which live in the bottom of the pond or in the filter. They break down the organic matter, dead beasties, algae, fish muck and plant bits that are the rubbish of every pond. This organic matter is usually broken down to minerals called nitrates, which are taken up by the other plants in the pond and are used in the process of growth. This is a basic explanation of the ‘nitrogen-cycle’ that occurs in ponds, gardens and the great world beyond.
Any plant that grows with its leaves below the water surface oxygenates the water. By far the most effective oxygenator of all is Lagarosiphon major sometimes known as Elodea crispa or Curly pondweed.

Collect bunches of 4 or 5 10cm long cuttings

Push the cuttings into a an aquatic planting basket full of inert gravel

Lower the basket full of cutting to a depth of about 18inches or half a metre

Push cuttings in bunches of 5 into containers of peagravel and place them a few inches below water level until
they start growing. Then place them at the bottom of the pool if it is less than 1 metre deep.

Lilies add the element that makes the pond a water garden rather just a pool of water. Lilies are the most sought after deep-water aquatics for their purity of colour and long flowering season. These grow from the bottom of the pool. Most of the common types are happiest in containers at a depth 18ins to 3ft (450mm - 1mtr). They begin to flower as the summer gets under way but only if they get direct sunlight. They dont like growing in disturbed water, so keep them away from waterfalls and fountains. Being gross feeders, they may need a fertiliser pellet pushed into their planting container to get them going in a new pond. The pond will feed them once a proper eco-system and nitrogen cycle is established.
The water hawthorn;Aponogeton distachyos - a deep water plant from South Africa
The Water Hawthorn (Aponogeton distachyos) is another deepwater plant that is not quite so flamboyant as the lilies but it is fragrant, early flowering (indeed winter flowering), tolerant of greater depths yet reserved in small pools. Indigenous to South Africa the inhabitants of Cape Town love to eat the flowers in a special stew called Water blommetjie bredie.

Some marginals you may recognise from the herbaceous border where they may be just as much at home. Marginal plants are very often confused with bog plants. In fact many species are quite happy with merely boggy conditions and sometimes even dryish terrain. This is one of their useful attributes for helping you soften the edges of the water garden and to blend the water garden in with the rest of the garden. It can also be one of their dubious or irritating attributes in that some are very disposed to establishing themselves outside of the pond by sending out suckers, and before you realise it have established themselves in great swathes in every part of the garden. With this in mind, great care should be made when choosing your marginal plants particularly if it is a wildlife water garden full of indigenous plants.
But really these plants are those that are tolerant of sitting permanently up to their necks in water.
They are planted into baskets lined with hessian that will sit on the marginal shelf just below the surface of the water.
Between them the marginals provide a flourish of flower from earliest spring with the Marsh Marigolds through to midsummer with the Lythrums and Lobelia. Duller moments for later on in the year areLobelia cardinalis provides a bright splash of colur to the margins at the height of summer. brightened by the huge variety of foliage with variety of shape texture, colour and variegation. Small tufty types like the Water Forget-me-not or creeping ground cover types like Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia) or Brooklime (Veronica beccabunga) fill in the spaces between the taller varieties of more spikey plants that might perhaps be Flowering rush (Butomus umbellatus) or Scented Rush (Acorus calamus). Some of them are rampant devils in disguise, particularly some of the indigenous reeds and rushes. But when you see the dignified aristocracy of
some of the Irises like the Japanese style Iris ensata, then seeking the opportunity to grow these plants becomes like a hunger.

Floaters or Floating plants are the enigmatic elements of a pond plant world. They can take over if there is no competition of the climate is too benign. But there is no doubt that there are some of the most efficient hoovers of excess nutrients in a pond, the trouble is that that the more nutrients there are the more they grow, which can be good if you are trying to see your goldfish in the UK and the plants are water hyacinth but not if you are in South Africa and trying to maintain a dam and the water for water sports. More about floating plants in detail later in the year.

FISH AND WILD LIFE, AND SOME MORE DOS AND DONTS FOR THE MIXTURE

What is also important about the plants is that they are the essential welcoming party for any fish you may put into your water garden or for any animals and insects that will make their way there once the word gets out. They will provide food, cover, oxygen and just make the place "so pretty and homely".
Fish can be introduced in small quantities in some three weeks after the plants go in. New proprietary chemical additives allow you to do this sooner by speeding up the process maturation and actively help to reduce the effects of the stress the fish endure through being moved. The water needs to be well oxygenated for these chemicals to work properly.

Never let the fish population rise above 2 inches of fish per square foot of surface area (15cm per square metre). You will find that it is impossible to sustain either clear water or healthy fish once this limit is breached.

If you choose to have the fabulously coloured Koi carp, think in terms of a sophisticated filter system and the expense that entails. Koi carp seem intrinsically vandalistic, therefore lilies and oxygenating plants are usually out of the question.
Dont mix the wild native species of fish like Sticklebacks and Minnows with the domestic breeds of Goldfish and the like. If you keep to the domestic breeds you find they all live quite happily together.
When introducing new fish to a new environment, float them in a plastic bag with the top rolled down on the surface of the water for 15 to 30minutes. Gradually introduce small quantities of the water from their new home. This takes the stress out of changes in the water chemistry and temperature. Then slowly tip up the bag and let them flow into the pool. There you have the culmination of the Perfect Pond Recipe. Like tipping out the perfect caramel custard.

If you make sure you have all the right ingredients and the right quantities, and take the right amount of time then you can hardly go wrong. But this is a recipe where nature does the cooking!

QUANTITIES FOR ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS

Oxygenators:e.g. Elodea crispa - Lagarosiphon major
Callitriche - Water Starwort
Ranunculus aquatalis - Water Crowfoot – great for slow running streams.
I bunch of 4 or 5 strands for every 2 square foot of surface area.

Lilies: For very small ponds there are the Nymphaea pygmaea varieties that sit in 10 -30cm of water with a spread of lessthan 0.6sqmtrs.
In general allow 1 lily for every 25sqft or 2.5sqmtrs of pool surface area. Allow them to spread to cover two thirds of this area.

Marginals: Do your homework on these as some spread like a smell.
For small pools: Acorus gramineus, Sisyrinchium californicum, Caltha palustris (Marsh Marigold), Veronica beccabunga (Brooklime), Myosotis palustris, any of the Irises apart from Iris pseudacorus, but this is great for large pools.
Allow 1 marginal for every 5sqft or every half a metre of pool surface area. Personally, I just squeeze in as many as I can; it’s like putting cherries in a fruitcake.

The Perfect Pond Recipe Book by Peter J. May: All you need to create the perfect water gardenYou can buy the simple practical book, The Perfect Pond Recipe Book, at £4.95 including p&p (UK only) from this site. This illustrated guide will take you through any project you have in mind.Cover for "Designing and Creating Water Gardens" by Peter J. May: The big brother to the 'Perfect Pond Recipe Book' It enables you to create your dream.

If you prefer the a fuller more detailed version lavishly illustrated with colour photographs, then you can purchase Designing and Creating Water Gardens at £19.95 including p&p(UK only). Both books are by Peter May the author of this article.

Readers not resident in the UK can purchase these books from http://www.linklux.com/ or http://www.perfect-pond-detective.com/