Garden Ponds: Basic Pond Setup and Maintenance

Transform your backyard into an oasis of beauty and tranquility! Learn all about:

• Equipment and materials, including preformed, liners, concrete, and fiberglass
• Water cycles, water chemistry, pond surface area, and volume
• Pond styles, choosing a location, and how to add waterfalls, fountains, and watercourses
• Selecting fish and water plants including varieties, care, feeding, and troubleshooting
• Construction from A to Z including excavation, leveling, placing components, electricity, lighting, aeration, filtration, drainage, skimmers, pumps, and more
• Seasonal pond care to ensure you're applying proper maintenance all year-round

In this colorful Garden Ponds Made Easy title, authors Dennis Kelsey-Wood and Tom Barthell have provided an essential guide for first-time pond enthusiasts!

Inside this 128-page resource, the authors outline all the considerations for starting out with a new pond, including determining the site, style, and size of your pond, and deciding on the construction of the pond (whether preformed, concrete, or fiberglass). Garden Ponds offers a chapter on water which discusses water chemistry factors, volume of the pond, and pond surface. Other important factors involve the aeration, filtration, drainage, and maintenance of a clean (algae-free) pond.

Special features, including waterfalls, fountains, and watercourses, electricity, and landscaping are addressed in detail, all accompanied by color photographs and drawings. A chapter on pond construction details every step of the project from creating a blueprint to securing the foundation, with an easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide to digging out and shaping the pond itself.

The infinite choices involved with stocking the pond with fish and plants can be overwhelming for the first-time pond owner, and the authors give excellent advice about making smart choices for a harmonious, beautiful garden pond. A special chapter on seasonal pond care gives you recommendations for maintaining your pond all year long. A resources section and comprehensive glossary are included.

Create the garden pond you've always dreamed of, with Garden Ponds!

Dennis Kelsey-Wood was a well-known naturalist and widely published author.

Tom Barthel is managing editor of Water Garden News and Koi World magazines. A certified master gardener and journalist specializing in animal topics, he has authored numerous articles on fish, birds, small mammals, reptiles, and other subjects. He lives in Long Beach, California, with his wife Rachel, where he enjoys his formal Spanish-Mediterranean garden pond.