Have you always wanted a water feature in your garden, whether it be for the simple pleasure of listening to the sound of running water or to help promote and increase the biodiversity within your garden? Either way, this blog is for you! We've created a super simple guide on the 5 Essential Steps for Creating a Simple Small Garden Pond and how much it cost us to make ours!

Step 1 - The Container

In order to create your pond, you of course first need a water tight container. In our instance, we purchased a tub about the size of a UK Recycling Box from a local farmer at the whopping cost of £2. BARGAIN. However, it did have holes in the base therefore, we also needed to purchase a water tight pond liner. As it's only a small size, this cost around £8 for a 1x1m liner which as you can see from the video is just about the perfect size for the tub.

Step 2 - The Inner Base

Ponds generally need a good base in the form of aquatic stones, partly because they help to hold a liner in place but also help to keep water chemically balanced as well as help to reduce algae growth. Because algae LOVES the sunshine, stones at varying heights can create shaded areas resulting in harder algae growing conditions. They also look nice so there's that too...

We simply bought some from Amazon because it was easy but you can of course find these sorts of items at garden centres, diy stores or pet shops. These were one of the more costly items as you need a fair few. So for a couple of packs of different sized aquatic stones via Amazon set us back £25.

Step 3 - The Fountain

In order to create the main event, you of course need a fountain of some form. Not only is this for the viewing pleasure but is also essential in ensuring the water does not become stagnant, by keeping the water moving. As our fountain was just to be placed randomly in the middle of the garden and are lucky enough to have South facing garden, we chose a purely Solar based fountain. Again, this was purchased via Amazon at £15. It is by no means a super powerful fountain and it does only really work in direct sunlight due to not being designed to store energy (one learn of ours during this process) however, there are various versions out there to suit your requirements.

Its important to note that if the fountain is not helping to move the water enough, you will need to replenish this to ensure it doesn't become stagnant. Additionally, the elss water moves, the more of the unwanted bugs may arrive such as mosquitoes. Therefore as an add on, I'd recommend buying mosquito dunks to help ensure this doesn't happen.

Step 4 - Plant Life

Plant life is essential within ponds as it helps to oxygenate the water. They are also great at again creating both shady spots to avoid algae build up as well as sheltered areas for wildlife. We purchased a few via Amazon (can you see a theme here...convenience was key for us at the time!). We bought 3 different varieties costing us about £20. We'll cover these in another blog once we've had a chance to also see how they adapt to their new life.

Step 5 - Escape Route

With any bodies of water, escape routes are generally well advised. This is to ensure anything that falls in them accidentally, has a chance to escape. We therefore simply took a broken branch from a local cycle path, wedged it between the stones whilst resting it against the side of the tub. This should hopefully ensure that any small creature that may fall in, will be able to grab hold of the branch and pull itself/climb out.

Conclusion

As you can see, creating this lovely little feature really doesn't have to be that difficult or that expensive. In total, we spent around £70 but wouldn't be surprised if you could actually do it a little cheaper if you were more thrifty and less impatient with purchases.

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