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Patio Ponds
I've never understood why more gardeners don't use patio ponds as a way to enhance their small backyard gardens. They are so simple to construct and maintain; it is indeed one of the simplest forms of gardening. Here are a few tips to get you started.
This is simple. Anything that will hold water. :-) I've use half whisky barrels with a home made plastic liner. Get some plastic paint sheets from a hardware or paint store; they're the cheapest and will easily last a summer or two. Easily replaced if you have to move or have a problem. I've used plastic tubs. The picture below is my tub in a very small townhouse garden under construction. It was a temporary garden and all the plants were in puts buried in cheap mulch. I've use clay pots with the bottom holes hot glue-gunned shut. In the picture, the pots have their holes glue-gunned and then sunk into a gravel mulch. You could use bark chips or simply let the pots sit on the patio. Anything that will hold water. :-)
Several clumps of oxygenating plants will keep the average small patio pond clear. But if not, then it is only a few minutes work to siphon the green water out and replace it with clean. My choice is always the oxygenators (available at all garden shops now). If you're not growing fish or plants in there, a bit of household bleach kills off all the algae.
Only if you want the water to move around. They are not necessary in small ponds and if you have plants in there, don't use them. The water will move around too much and the plants will be unhappy.
Yes. I've grown dwarf tropical water lilies in mine. Easy gardening and stunningly beautiful - particularly the dwarf blue ones. Floating oxygenators work really well too and some like the water hyacinth may even give you a bloom or two because of the high heat of the water in a small patio pond. As long as you stick to the dwarf lilies or small floating plants, you'll be fine. Other pondside plants such as calla or Japanese Iris are easy because you pot them up and put them on the shelves on the pond side. They are buried in the garden for the winter (or a friend's garden if you don't have one) You can decorate/landscape around the edges of the patio pond by buying some large tropical plants at discount stores, putting them in nicer decorative pots and putting these around the edges of the pond to soften the look.
Dump plants in compost pile. Dump water out. Turn patio.pond upside down or store clay pots indoors where they won't freeze and crack. And that my friends is as simple as water gardening gets. I still keep patio ponds even though I now have moved back to the country and have several acres to garden in.
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