I remember trying to make a pond as a young child. After digging a modest hole at the end of the garden I would run back and forth with a watering can for a day attempting to fill it with water. Naturally water drained away into the ground and being knee high to a grasshopper I had absolutely no idea why I couldn’t fill my pond.

What I didn’t know back then was that ponds need to be lined because the earth is porous. Just like your sandcastle moats, without a liner water just drains away.

One of the fundamentals of pond construction is ensuring it is lined. Pond lining comes from a roll similar to a carpet so you would simply need to work out how much liner you need for the size of your pond. Pond liner calculators are very handy for this task, just measure the width, length & depth of the pond.

What about Pond Underlay?

If you have quite a large pond construction project pond liner underlayis essential. Particularly when there is the possibility of the liner getting damaged by tree roots or sharp rocks!

You have the pond liner so what is next?

When you have put a liner in your pond and it is holding water there is more to do. The water musn’t become stagnant so you need to ensure it is renewed or filtered continuously. Your pond will almost certainly require a pond pump particularly if you intend to put fish in there! Like pond liner, choosing a pump depends on the size of the pond. The pump must be powerful enough to pump and renew all the water in the pond within a certain time frame.

Had I known the correct way to construct a pond at 7 years old, I probably would have continued my quest. Alongside making mud pies that clearly nobody is going to eat. Racing to get back with buckets of water before the previous contents soacked into the mud and turning my parents kitchen into an indoor paddling pool was so much fun!