7 steps to planning a garden pond

The life in a garden pond provides visual pleasure and an ongoing education. It's also a lovely addition to any style of garden.

Aquatic plants add oxygen to the water and take up impurities, while fish eat mosquitoes and other insects, and their waste fertilizes the plants.

Here's how to get the pond-planning process started.

Select a location where the pond looks like it fits with the rest of the landscape.

• In a formal garden, for example, consider using a symmetrical pond as a centrepiece.
• For a naturalistic look, site a free-form pond where it can be easily seen and enjoyed from outdoor living areas.
• Make sure to consider the view from indoors.

Nearby trees may block the sun needed by aquatic plants and litter the water with leaves in autumn.

• If you like the look of a pond set in a leafy glade, choose evergreen trees and shrubs, which don't shed, and site them far enough away so that they won't cast shade and their roots won't eventually weaken pond walls.

Flexible, fish-safe liners can be fitted into any size or shape of pond.

• They are inexpensive and last for 10 years or more.
• Pre-formed fibreglass ponds are a bit more durable, but are trickier to install because they must be perfectly fitted into the excavated hole.

• For the best fit, line the hole with one to three centimetres of damp sand before installing a flexible liner for your pond.
• If the pond is small, a piece of scrap carpeting may save you some money.
• It's easier to work with a flexible liner on a warm, sunny day, when the liner is more pliable.

If you're installing your own pond, make sure that the top edges are absolutely level. Use a long carpenter's level to check all sides.

No room?

• If your yard is too small to accommodate a full-size pond, you can create a mini-pond with a half barrel or other watertight container.
• Use only small aquatic plants that are suited to tub culture.

Landscape the edges with a combination of plants and edging stones.

• Brick edging gives a neat look to formal ponds.
• For a naturalistic pond, use stones.
• Instead of arranging them in a ring around the pond's edge, allow some to appear to tumble into the water.