Just registered and new to this forum so don't know where to start really.

In a nutshell i've just moved house and for the first time ever i've got a nice sized garden and ample space for a pond. I've always wanted one but just don't know where to start!!

I would like to do most of the labour myself.

Any tips/help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Hi there, I am relatively new as well.

I wouldn't install a pond if I was you, I had one in one of my gardens and unfortunately a small child died. Me + Beer + Pond + Child = Inevitable drowning.

Welcome.

Hi Mr Monkey,

I wouldn't bother with a pond mate - right waste of time, effort and money. (unless you like fishing of course)

Hello there Mr Monkey,

you may be interested in my rather unusual and novel idea for a pond. I have a large unused cellar in my house and so decided I would convert it into a pond..I have to say the results are quite spectacular and it means I can enjoy my pond all year round without worrying about the weather. I also use it as a hot tub when the mood takes me...the fish don't seem to mind. If you are interested you are welcome to a 'private viewing'.

Kind regards,
WD

Hi Monkey,

I think you really need to get the location absolutely correct before you start to create your pond, something I failed to do more than once. I was just to eager to get going I suppose. I now have four large holes in the garden, a bad back and a muddy dog although the hole is now finally in the correct place for my pond. I guess its all in the planning. Hope this helps.

Hi Arry,
have you considered joining all the holes together and thus making one large lake..just a thought..
Also, I recommend you have a massage using aromatic oils, to ease your back pain..
WD

Thats an interesting idea and one I may adopt. There cant be many people with a shed on an island in their garden.

Ive not tried aromatic oils but did try crispy aromatic duck once which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I had a pond and spent thousands on beautiful Koi from a local Garden Centre, whithin a few days they were all gone.

At first I thought it was Heron taking them, then a very good friend of mine told me that Fairy Liquid is not the way to clean the pond filters.

Tough lesson to learn but something I will pass on.

Thank you Terrapin

Also I was thinking of getting a cat to keep away the Herons around here...but I have seen a post sayoing that cats like to poo in compost and that is dangerous.

Is it a wise move or not... Cats can't swim so I am not worried about them eating the fish.

My neighbour too indeed has a nice pussy too, though it is one of them hairless types.

I have increased amount of pond life during the summer, how can I reduce this?

Thank you Terrapin...yeah the Furkin sounds a great idea too

Donkey....that's horrific, so bad and so sad. I hope you are now over your sad loss

Wow, well thankyou very much guys for the responses.

First of all, Bulbital....i love fishing, i really do but that's not really what i had in mind for my pond. This is how i see the vision.......long warm sunner afternoons, barbeque going, good book in hand and a nice cold glass of water with ice, listening to the tranquil sound of water by my beautiful pond.

Also, wine delilah, thankyou for your suggestion, i too have a cellar but i use it for other activities so a pond in my cellar is not really an option i'm afraid.

Terrapin and AlanMarsh.....i'm not sure if you are taking this seriously but your posts made me giggle all the same. My wife (also a keen gardener) thinks you are silly but i said to her "get a sense of humour, these guys seem like a good laugh even if they are a bit crude".

Arry the plant......thankyou for your suggestions regarding location, i think my garden is the perfect location for a pond.

I aim to start digging next week.

Thanks again guys!

Don't make the same mistake that I made with your pond. My neighbour had a pond professionally installed a couple of years ago and spent an absolute fortune on a piddly little thing. I thought I could do something pretty epic myself with hardly any outlay.

I borrowed the tools that I needed from my old man and proceeded to mark out my pond. I was looking for something pretty impressive so marked out a quarter of my garden and dug out a step like pattern so I could have a waterfall type effect.
Anyways me and my mate made the day of it in the sun, few beers, disposable BBQ and a couple of shovels. We dug out the hole, planted a few of the underwater seeds that he'd brought over and some sea monkey eggs that we scattered on the bottom before getting the hose out to fill her up. After hours and hours of watching the thing filling up but not really getting anywhere (it had only just started to show signs of puddles) we decided to leave it filling overnight and hope that it was ready for the morning because the filters were coming.
Anyways at about 8am there was a banging at my front door, I was expecting my pond filters delivered so jumped up expecting to see the postman complimenting my new pond and handing over a package. It was only the bloody neighbour in the house behind mine, the water was just going straight into his garden and he'd been fighting it out of his living room all night before tracing it up to my pond that was still completely empty.
I was ****ing livid, my nextdoor neighbour had obviously sabotaged my pond during the night because it was going to make his investment look ridiculous. I calmed down, waited until he went to work, went into his back garden and ****ing trashed his pond - looking back now I feel sorry for the fish but if he didn't ruin my garden I wouldn't have had to kill his fish.

I hope, if you are installing a pond that you've got better neighbours than me because they can sometimes be an absolute ****ing nightmare, you wouldn't believe the hell this guy has single handedly caused the people around us over the years, pond-gate is just the tip of the iceberg.

On 3/3/2012 9:19 PM, Donkey wrote:
poisonedmonkey;952511 Wrote:
Just registered and new to this forum so don't know where to start
really.

In a nutshell i've just moved house and for the first time ever i've got
a nice sized garden and ample space for a pond. I've always wanted one
but just don't know where to start!!

I would like to do most of the labour myself.

Any tips/help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Hi there, I am relatively new as well.

I wouldn't install a pond if I was you, I had one in one of my gardens
and unfortunately a small child died. Me + Beer + Pond + Child =
Inevitable drowning.

Welcome.

Call me paranoid but are we being invaded by again by persons trying to
ruin this forum. Shades of red.pond 5 years ago.

That sounds very similar to something that happened a few weeks ago in my life, although mine is not related to the beautiful world of gardens.

In this case my child fell over in my garden and landed in the pond, he survived but despite him insisting he fell the father in me took over and I rightly presumed my neighbour had pushed him in.

So the next day, I looked out the window to see next door's 6 year old girl and a couple of her friends playing next to their pond. Understandably I fetched my machine gun and shot them all dead.

Needless to say the cnut never attacked my kid again.