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Garden Ponds - Part one
Q:
Pond safety - will a pond be dangerous for young children who
visit?
Q:
Is
there enough room in my garden for a pond?
Q:
Is
there a suitable aspect in my garden for a pond?
Garden Ponds - Part 2
Q:
Is pond maintenance
time consuming?
Q:
What sort of garden pond should I have?
Q:
What pond accessories will I need?
Garden Ponds - Part 3
Q:
How
much will a garden pond cost?
Q:
What
fish/wildlife should I stock the pond with?
Q:
Would a water feature be safer and easier to maintain?
Q: How much
will a garden pond cost?
A: If you want a simple sunken garden pond with a butyl liner, which
is the cheapest type of liner at about ?2 per metre, and if you have edging
stones to hand and don`t need a filtration system, or electrics, your pond
will cost just a few pounds..
 If on the other
hand you want a sophisticated raised brick-built koi pond with all the
accompanying filtration system, electrics, lighting, fountain etc., you can
look at spending hundreds of pounds, according to the size you want of
course.
Another
consideration is labour costs if you are unable to build the pond yourself,
and this would cost you approximately ?200 per day to include labour,
machinery and VAT, but excluding materials..
So your
garden pond can
cost as much or as little as you feel you want to spend on the project.
Q:
What fish/wildlife
should I stock the pond with?
A: Before you stock your garden pond with any livestock you must let
the water settle for a couple of weeks while the chlorination from the tap
water neutralises. Chemicals can be bought and added to speed up this process.
 If you want to
keep fish and you are not experienced take advice from your local aquarist,
who will tell you how many fish you can safely keep with the amount of water
you have in your garden pond. You might think that there is plenty of room for
dozens of fish, but remember how quickly they will grow. An overcrowded fish
pond is unhealthy because there is not enough oxygen for all the fish. You
will probably be advised to keep simple goldfish and shubunkin types initially until you are more experienced..
If you are
planning a wildlife pond, get a few snails and plants from your local
aquarist and leave the rest to nature.. You will find that baby frogs and
many other intriguing pond living creatures will gradually start to find
their way to your garden pond if you have sited it correctly in your garden and
left a shallow area for wildlife to get in and out of the water...
Q:
Would a water feature be safer and easier to maintain?
A: A water feature is still dangerous to young children, who
can drown in something as shallow as a puddle. But you can still protect
water features with covers and grids such as the ones made by
this company .. Of course it is
much easier to supervise young children when you have a smaller area of
water which is perhaps nearer to the house..
 As
for ease of maintenance, in my experience water features are a lot easier to
maintain and keep that `cared for` look, because they are usually a lot
smaller. But don`t be fooled into thinking they will need little or no
maintenance because there is nothing more unpleasant than switching on the
pump in Springtime to be greeted with a fountain of foul smelling green
stagnant water which has last season's dead leaves floating in it.
A simple bird
bath in our garden tends to get thick red algae growing in it, which
together with the bird droppings that accumulate in the bottom, requires it
to have a good scrub and water change at least weekly.
There is then
a price to pay for your pond or water feature both in terms of time and
money.. It all depends on your lifestyle and budget..
This pond safety product is a `must` if you have young
children visiting and a pond in your garden:-
 www.safapond.com
Specialist suppliers and installers of garden pond safety systems.
Designed with kids in mind. Protecting young children from the dangers of
garden ponds and water features..
Garden Ponds - Part
One
Garden Ponds - Part Two
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