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Once you've chosen a spot for your container water garden – remember, 6 or more hours of direct sunlight a day, no overhanging trees, and a nearby water source (and power source if you'll be using a circulating pump for a waterfall) – you get to the fun part. Most home and garden supply store chains carry all the materials you need to create small ponds, including plastic liners – but you're only limited by your imagination and a few basic rules in choosing a container for your water garden.
It must be easy to drain.
It must be non-porous.
It must be deep enough to support the plants you want to grow.
I've seen water gardens that use everything from old bathtubs to an assortment of terracotta pots (with plastic liners) to large baskets (also with plastic liners).
For a container water garden, you won't actually be planting the plants in the bottom of the ‘pond'. Instead, each plant will be planted in its own separate pot and submerged in the water.
Assemble your equipment
You'll need your containers, plants, bricks or terracotta pots, gravel, heavy soil, aquatic plant fertilizer tablets and a garden hose.
Pot your plants
If they're not already in suitable pots, you'll need to pot your plants. Do not use potting soil, vermiculite or peat moss – all of which will wash out of the pots and foul the water. Instead, you want a very heavy, mud-clay like soil. Fill the pot 2/3 full with soil. Push a fertilizer tablet into the soil, then carefully spread the roots of the plant over the surface of the dirt. Add a few inches of dirt and lightly tamp it down, then cover with an inch or so of pea gravel. Repeat until all of your plants are potted.
Arrange your plants in the container
This is where the bricks come in. The tops of the plant pots should be no more than a few inches below the surface of the water. Stack bricks, upended terracotta pots or construction blocks in the container and place pots on top of them to vary the heights of the plants.
Add pump for fountain or waterfall if using one.
If you're adding a fountain or a waterfall, situate the pump per the manufacturer's directions.
Fill with water.
Using the garden hose, fill your container with water until the plant pots are submerged under a few inches of water. If you ‘fill from the bottom' by dropping the hose into the bottom of the container and letting the water level rise, you'll reduce the chance of disturbing the soil and gravel in your plants.
Enjoy.
Don't forget that the point of the exercise was to have a lovely, cool water garden to enjoy. Make sure that you place a bench or comfortable sitting rock nearby where you can enjoy the beauty of your own miniature pond every day.
Once you have decided that you want to build a water garden in your garden or back yard you will need to make bigger and crucial decisions about how the whole thing is going to look, how are you going to make sure that each element you want in your water garden will be successful and help the entire water garden environment flourish.
As everyone knows there are many different water gardens, and from my experience most people already have some idea about the general look and theme they look for, but sometimes people are not educated enough to make the choices, some times home owners discover other, unknown water gardens after they that invested a lot of their energy, efforts and money into their existing water garden.
The basic idea in planning and even designing your own water garden is to have a lot of information before you even start imagining how its going to look and how much time you will spend in your new garden. Surf the internet and look for things you like, and things that you dislike. As you start seeing more and more internet sites, articles and photos start also paying attention to costs and maintenance costs and details as well. If you do your research correctly if will be very easy for you to make the right decision once the moment for that has come.
Two very different and always gorgeous basic concepts are the western water garden which can be mostly found in Europe and consists mainly of the water pond features and a matching garden on the same space, and the oriental, meaning mostly Japanese water garden which places a lot of importance of the whole look and harmony created between the space nature and men.
Although a lot of people have a very clear idea what they want and stick with their basic feelings, sometime one is fascinated by something completely different and changes his mind, the problem in that case is that if this person did not do his research he is going to need to recalculate the costs and start looking at the space differently, this is very significant in moving from a western European approach, which basically can match itself fairly easy to the average style of building, than to switch from the oriental approach to the European one.
Both of these popular water garden designing styles are beautiful and would make anyone feel great sitting in his or hers water garden to relax and reflect on things, read a book or take a nap, meditate or spend time with the family. It is clear that people have different needs and different passions, some want a fish free garden as others are mainly interested in fish, it is obvious that it is these needs that will dictate all that follows, costs and maintenance and the level of dedication to be involved in maintaining or even enlarging your water garden.
As with all other things a research will set you on your feet before you start shopping, like that you will also start a better chance of discovering different sales techniques and you will not be easy to convince going a different direction, this research will only do good things to your future water garden.