Before you begin building a pond – part 1 – Your imagination

This is the first of a series of posts that will discuss a number of important points to consider before starting your own outdoor pond. Most of those points are important to create the proper mindset for a successful and enjoyable pond project.

This series will touch only the surface of a series of topics, from planing to designing, from safety to maintenance, from pond life to pond illumination. In the future Pond Building Mastery will elaborate on each and every topic with several posts and practical guides.

What is requested from you right now?

Read the series and give it a thought. After that – use the comments area to ask your questions and give your opinions.

So let’s begin…

Your head is full of ideas – let them flow

First of all – go for it and don’t stop yourself. Day dream and play around with the idea as much as you can. Let your imagination take you to new and exciting places with no limitations at all.

As with any project, it is first created in the mind and only then in reality.

Keep a notebook or a pad around at all times, and write down the ideas, draw them, describe them. Go around Pond Building Mastery and the internet and look for pond ideas. Keep them as design references, as inspiration. Mark the features that you like and don’t like.

This process will have two results, the first it will make it real for you, it will be the first step to start creating your own pond. The second result, it will start shaping your pond, pointing to the directions you want to go with it, and places you want to avoid.

At this stage, don’t limit yourself with issues of budget or skills, dream freely about making a pond, your own great pond. In a later stage we will help you convert the dream plans into a reality; with tips and tricks to adapt big ideas into your garden, pocket and skills.

Is there any place for your creativity?

Oh yes, lots of them. A pond is built by a large number of steps and decisions you take, each of them will be influenced not only by your skills and budget but specially by your creativity and imagination. Creative decisions will be all over the process, you will decide about:

• pond’s shape
• pond’s location
• how it is integrated into your garden and the natural settings of the site.
• how you will take advantage of the environment you already have in your garden, such as trees or the slope of the terrain.
• pond illumination
• pond decoration
• pond plants – both inside and around it
• The different types of fish you will host in your pond
• Rocks, waterfalls, bridges, decks, statues, garden furniture around it. And more…

You start with your garden as your canvas and there you build your pond from your imagination. And it doesn’t end there, as it is a creation that you can constantly improve and change during the years.

But you don’t consider yourself creative – Can you still build your own pond?

The answer is a huge YES. Don’t worry, we at Pond Building Mastery will publish a large number of pond plans, fully described projects that can be followed from begging to end to create a beautiful pond. You can reduce your decisions to a single one – the project that you will turn into reality.

Still we at Pond Building Mastery believe in sparking your imagination and giving the tools and skills to make it a reality. You are making a pond for your own garden and for your family. We are certain that after looking at beautiful pond images and reviewing a number of pond building plans from Pond Building Mastery, you will find yourself mixing and matching a feature from here and and idea from there. Creating your own unique pond.

Enjoy the journey…

Skills – What do you need?

One of the next posts on this series will discuss what you need to know, before you start making your pond, about skills and tools needed. In fact, as you expect, this is a topic that will be covered in a number of separate posts and guides that will be published in the future by Pond Building Mastery.

For now don’t worry, those skills that you don’t have can be acquired and we are here to help you succeed with that challenge.

This is the imagination part. So start day dreaming.

What do you do next?

• Dream, day dream, imagine it and dream again
• Take lots of notes of what you want and don’t want in your pond project. And specially what you like and don’t like.
• Look for photos of backyard ponds or take your our pictures from nearby places. Use them as reference, annotate them, be inspired by them.
• Share your questions, worries, ideas and opinions in the comments area bellow.

Additional reading:

• Gone fishing in the backyard pond – A short article on tips to improve your experiences with an outdoor pond.