The Little Water Garden

 A few years ago I decided to create a little water garden using a 35 gallon plastic stock tank I'd picked up at a yard sale or off Craigslist.  I set it in the ground, surrounded it with flagstone pavers, and filled it with water plants.  My little water feature thrived, and I even had frogs move in the first two years.

Last year was not so good.  I ended up having an algae problem and was too lazy to address it, so nothing really wanted to live in my little "pond".
Even though the tank garden worked well, it was still a pain to have to disassemble it for winter every year.  After the first killing frost in the fall I pull the plants out, discarding the water lettuce and water hyacinth.  Whatever perennials I can keep over winter, like dwarf papyrus and lavender musk, I bring indoors.  The dwarf cattails go into the basement in a bucket of water for the winter, where they never freeze and hardly ever see light.  Then I can drain the tank using a small sump pump, give it a good scrubbing, pull it out of the ground and flip it over for the winter.  Doing this prevents the water from freezing and cracking the tank.  I've decided that it's time to make a more permanent water feature out of my tank garden.

The first thing I did was pull the tank, then clean out the hole and remove the stone edging.  You want to be sure the hole and sides are smooth; the PVC pond liner is durable, but it's thin, and sharp stones or sticks can puncture it.  As an added precaution, I added two 50 lb. bags of play sand to the bottom of the hole.

Tutorials online also suggest old carpeting as an underlayment.  One thing to note - the pond liner (purchased on Amazon) has a shiny side and a dull side.  There were no instructions with the liner that told me which side was supposed to face up, and a quick search online resulted in the oft repeated answer that it doesn't matter.  I chose to put the dull side up because the water is reflective enough without a black high gloss shine coming from below.   Luckily, the 4'x6' sheet of pond liner I ordered fit perfectly.  I secured it in place with some heavy stones, making sure to leave a little give in the liner to accommodate for the weight and distribution of the water that would be added.

Before I started setting the edging stones, I mostly filled the hole with water to be sure I had given it enough slack, and to be sure the heavier stones would hold the liner corners when the pond was full.  I also started VERY GENTLY adding river rock to the bottom, and set a few larger rocks in the pond.

Once I knew the corners were secure, I moved on to the outer pieces of stone.  The black flies were brutal at this point and I just wanted to get it done and get back inside.  I didn't take the time to level out the stones and ensure they were locked in place with the stone dust.  I also only had one bag of stone dust, so later in the season I'll probably reset the edging properly.  Once that was done, I filled the pond to overflowing, to try to drain out some of the dirt and debris that had found its way into it.

I added some barley extract to help clear the water, and tossed in a small solar fountain I'd also ordered.  Hopefully these two additions will prevent another algae outbreak this year.  I pulled the cattails out of the basement and put them in there, too.  I normally acclimate them to the outdoors, but again, I was in a rush and I know they're pretty hardy plants, so this year I'm just winging it.
The next morning the water was much more clear, and the plants still look ok.

Not great, but not bad.  I wish I'd lowered the back edge so it was not so visible, but floating water plants will help camouflage that.  Once the really warm weather gets here I'll be able to add water lettuce and hyacinth, as well as the other perennials.

Materials and costs:
Pond liner (4x6)         $24
Solar fountain             $16
Play sand   50 lbs        $5 ea.

The flagstone was something I had on hand, as well as the river rocks and random stones.  The most expensive part of the water feature, I've learned, are the plants!