The most popular type of outdoor pond is without a doubt a fish pond, with clean waters and filters. The much less common option, requesting a more adventurous spirit, is to build a wildlife outdoor pond.

photo credit: Martin Pettitt

First let’s define what is a wildlife pond. A wildlife pond is a natural environment hosting a self-sustaining ecosystem. A spot in your property backyard where nature has regained full control and you are merely an observer.

What are the steps to create wildlife backyard ponds?

1. Your pond must be located where wildlife has a free and undisturbed access. Best spots are the very edge of your property and close to nature.

2. Follow the building tips described below.

3. Borrow water from an existing wildlife pond, naturally occurring ones are best.

4. Let nature take control.

5. Eventually the environment will take care of the rest.

What can you expect? Well, if you take care of the details, you will have an autonomous ecosystem filled with a variety of living creatures and with little need for maintenance at all.

Building a wildlife pond.

A wild life pond is built using any informal outdoor pond plans, but your equipment list will be smaller as there is no need for filtration or aeration, nature will take care of this tasks. An important point to add is that fish will destroy your insect population, the basic food for other wildlife animals, so this kind of pond won’t host any kind of fish in it.

The best place to locate your wildlife pond is at an edge of your backyard, as close as possible to nature. But avoid problems, far from your house and neighbors property as the pond will attract insects, toads and other animals.

To create natural hiding places for the wildlife you want to attract, keep the vegetation around your pond as high and untidy as possible, but allow human access to enjoy and take care of it.

A secret ingredient that will make the difference. Find a naturally occurring wildlife pond, take some water from it and introduce it into your pond. The organisms you got from the natural pond will populate your newly created wildlife pond.

What kind of animals can you expect? The water borrowed from the natural pond will start an insect population. Your first visitors will probably be pond skaters and eventually dragonflies. With insects in place yo will start attracting their predators, toads and birds. If your site won’t let easy access to animals you can by some toads and introduce them to your backyard. But if your pond start growing mosquitoes or other undesirable insects you can add snails to keep the water clean.

Pond building have a large number of options, and wildlife ponds are not always the most popular, but if well planned and executed it can be a wonderful part of your backyard.

Looking for some ideas and inspiration for your outdoor pond, then visit pond-building-mastery.com to find essential tutorials, know-how and tips about pond building.

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An outdoor pond is a wonderful improvement to your garden or backyard, a place for relaxing and resting while observing your small part of nature. It’s no surprise that its popularity is becoming bigger and bigger.

photo credit: annrkiszt

Below you will find 7 essential tips to make sure your outdoor pond project is successful.

1. Inspiration from books, magazines and the Internet. You can find inspiring pond photo books in your local library or bookstore; also websites like flickr.com and youtube.com can be researched for images, tutorials and tips.

2. Inspiration is all over the place. Once you start looking you will find ponds and water features everywhere; parks and public buildings just to name a few. Take pictures of things you like and dislike, so later on, when designing, you can easily refer to.

3. Choose your pond location. Remember that a pond is not a mobile feature in your garden. Think of how close you want it to your house or neighbors property. Keep it away from sources of debris like a tree that looses many leaves. Place it in a spot where you can enjoy it from a window or at a relaxing corner of your garden.

4. Choose your outdoor pond style. If you would like to match the architecture of your house then a formal pond is probably your choice. Formal pond examples can be found in palaces and monuments both old and new. If you are looking for something more natural that will blend with the environment and your garden, then informal ponds are your choice. Informal ponds will imitate nature’s rivers and lakes with sand shores and lots of vegetation. The most important issue here is to keep your pond in harmony with your backyard design.

5. Additional design tips. Waterfalls and other features can be added to your pond but take its style into consideration. What kind of fish will you introduce and what are their needs? Does your ground allow easy digging for a below the ground pond or maybe you need to build it above the ground with a nice brick or stone wall?

6. Keep a close eye on your budget. Make sure you have the skills and resources to complete you pond building project. Sum up the materials, construction and maintenance expenses, including professional help if needed. If you need to cut building costs or reduce your efforts take a look at pre-made pond kits in the web or local stores.

7. Keep your pond Safe. Safety is your number one priority when it comes to children and pets playing around your garden. Also keep the stable surfaces around the pond and your electric installations water proof. A good quality liner is a must to avoid holes in your ponds due to rocks and ground movement. Clean and uncontaminated ponds are not only a maintenance issue but a safety one, both for your family and your fish.

Pond building is a complex hobby that can become very enjoyable if you take your time to plan and maintain it. Get your family involved in it from the very beginning making it a project enjoyed by everyone in your household.

Want to find out more about Pond Building, then visit Michael W.’s site on how to build the best outdoor pond for your needs and dreams.

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Like the living rooms of your house, the garden or recreation area is for the comfort and enjoyment of your family.
photo credit: Maven Dooshe

No stock set of plans answers the needs of all. You must first decide what your family needs are and then plan a garden to meet them,

Shall it be a rose garden, a rock garden, a wild garden or a play area? Do you want it formal, naturalistic, informal or conventional? And how about the style – English cottage garden, French parterre, Colonial or Japanese?

It is up to you. The garden is the outdoor area that is most valuable to the family as a whole and should be designed with that consideration uppermost.

Canadian Style

In Canada they have not yet developed their our own style. At present it follows the American trends very closely, but with less attention to garden ornaments and furnishings.

Because of longer winters, and most Canadians get to the country easily in the summer, they have not generally furnished their gardens for comfort in the past. Instead, they used them as a playground for the children and an exercise ground for horticultural hobbies.
photo credit: sarahgardenvisit

Lately, however, they have paid more attention to garden design and also to the arrangement of garden areas for comfortable living. By growing more flowers and taking advantage of a wealth of trees and shrubs. Canadians make liberal use of conifers to provide color and form during the long winters, and of bulbs for spring bloom.

Being accustomed to space in Canada, even in a formal garden they prefer a simple, open arrangement of parts to a crowded, European style with its fine detail. They like games so open lawns are needed by using lawn mower with lawn mower insurance.

Because of shoveling snow they leave planting well back from roads and paths. In Ontario and Quebec they have large supplies of good limestone, and prefer it for walks, steps and walls to the finer finish of brick or concrete.

A simple, open style suits the climate and their tastes, so it is generally the best one to use in gardens where they wish to relax. However, gardens intended as showplaces are often very effective when developed according to the styles of other countries and periods.

Kent Higgins frequently contributes to plant-care.com. The more you know the better decisions you can make, like the topic of lawn mower insurance.

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photo credit: albany_tim

Boundaries

Boundary plantings are used to give privacy and to screen from view any unsightly objects beyond. Also, they tie the whole garden together to give unity, and they act as a background and frame for the garden displays.

Boundary plants need to be dense enough and high enough to shut off the view, with some variety in height to make the skyline interesting. Sometimes it is a good idea to leave gaps in the planting, to show desirable views beyond the boundaries.

As mass effect is desired, plant shrubs in groups of one variety rather than single plants of many sorts. Choose the shrubs for their rapid growth, spreading habit and mid-green foliage rather than for distinctive features.

Wherever bloom occurs it should be in large enough masses to be effective at the distance from which it will be seen. Bloom, of course, is always attractive but in large gardens it is not as important in boundary plantings as in parts of the garden where it will be seen in more detail.

On small city lots we cannot hope to attain complete privacy or to screen the view of all surrounding buildings. On some lots the boundary planting takes the form of a hedge, or a fence on which climbers are grown. On others it is made up of groups of shrubs that not only back up the bright displays of the garden but to a great extent form the displays themselves.

Partitions and Backgrounds

Plantings separating small lots are more like partitions than boundaries.

The purpose of partitions, or background, plantings is to separate one garden area from another. Here, bloom and other distinctive features are important as the shrubs are close at hand and consequently are seen in detail.

Keep in mind that partitions and backgrounds are seen in elevation, and in your plans arrange them so that they will be most pleasing at maturity.

There will be points where you need boldness and increased height in the skyline. Here you should use “dominant” plants – small trees or large shrubs that have coarse foliage and a dense appearance whose height and texture makes them stand out above their fellows. These break the partition into sections or pictures.

Usually the center of interest in each of these small pictures consists of low-growing plants, such as those that spread horizontally or have some other particularly attractive feature. These we call “interest” plants. They are backed up and flanked by “fillers,” average sorts of plants whose function is to enhance and connect the other two.
photo credit: Margaret Anne Clarke

In all good shrub grouping in informal gardens, harmony is the rule, contrast the exception. There should be harmony of form, and of color and texture of foliage, with strong contrast of form and texture used only at strategic points.

Foliage color should blend gradually with the bright, warm greens near at hand and dark greens, blue-greens and gray-greens farther away. This gives the impression of added distance.

Texture, too, may be used to create illusions of distance or to emphasize certain points. Large foliage and coarse twigs like the bamboo palm plant are seen more clearly than fine foliage and twigs and, consequently, seem to be closer. For this reason large shrubs and palm plant of coarse texture make large spaces seem smaller. Similarly, a coarse shrub at the front of a border of fine-textured shrubs stands out very distinctly, and fine shrubs backed by coarser ones appear flat.

Specimens

Shrubs used as specimens, or accent points, in the garden lend emphasis to particular features of the design.

Kent Higgins frequently contributes to plant-care.com. The more you know the better decisions you can make, like the topic of bamboo palm plant.

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The “new look” in building architecture started in Europe, and on this continent in California, early in the 20th century. It did not come to Canada until after the Second World War.
photo credit: artefatica

Basically, modern architecture is functional rather than decorative. It emphasizes the structural mass in buildings and calls for ordered surroundings.

Garden planning has not developed a modern style to such a clear extent as architecture, since traditional materials and practices have not changed as much in gardening as in building.

Gardens cannot be purely practical as their function is largely decorative. Their reasons for existence are to provide beauty, relaxation and a natural setting for the buildings. When we work with complex natural forms, it is difficult to adhere to the plain surfaces characteristic of modern architecture.

Today we arrange plants in new forms to suit the scale and proportions of the new buildings; and we arrange the space in our gardens to suit our changing social habits.

The key idea in modern garden planning has been to consider the garden as an outdoor extension of the house for the comfort of the family, rather than as a plant museum.

This idea has also led to using more outdoor furniture, lighting, BBQ, screens, shelters, swimming pools and other things for decoration.

The average homeowner wants pleasing surroundings and a place to relax, with little labor and expense. Most of us look after our own gardens with perhaps a little unskilled labor for grass cutting and other regular chores. Unless gardening becomes our hobby, we will have less variety of plants than in the past. Also, there will be more careful planning of space as we become more appreciative of good design.

Because we need privacy, where there is little space we now use screens of closely woven lattice, opaque plastic or broad louvers of plywood to separate our garden from the neighbor’s. The more expensive walls of masonry or boundary plantings of trees and shrubs take up too much room to be used in a small garden.

Plants of rather unusual form are used in front of these flat surfaces to cast interesting and changing shadows not artificial lights.

The effect of moving light and shadow is given by the lattice or louvers themselves, or by “egg-crate” beams in the roof overhangs on garden shelters. The interest of this movement is a substitute for variety in planting and artificial light for plants.

Concrete paving blocks and three-dimensional cast figures are taking the place of more expensive stonework and statues. The outdoor barbeque grill, with dad cooking has replaced tray-carrying servants for entertaining.

Because we like to sit and enjoy the garden from one spot, raised masonry planters, decorative pottery or flower beds are used to connect the inside of the house with the garden, when viewed from inside.

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