Landscaping ponds Method For Uneven Ground

It is rare that the ideal place for your garden fish pond is on a perfectly flat piece of land. Such a landscaping "opportunity" gives you a couple of choices. You can re-site the garden pond to where you really don't want it so that the digging is easier and the ultimate pleasure considerably less or you can decide to tackle the layout and learn how to cope with uneven ground. The most difficult part of coping with uneven ground for your pond's eventual site is t get the levels right so that the eventual pond fits inot the landscape perfectly and does not appear "crooked" or just plain wrong. The procedure to landscape garden ponds this way is called "Pegging" and I'm grateful to Peter J May for help in writing this article

Pegging: the procedure to follow for landscaping ponds on uneven ground uses wooden pegs for landscaping ponds layout:

To landscape a pond on uneven ground, peg the pond out before you make the final decision about where and how big it will be. Your pond landscape project will be much easier and it will enable you to get a good overview of size and location.

Excellent diagrams are shown in Peter May's book ... "The Perfect Pond Recipe Book"

The Perfect Pond Recipe Book is best book ever on practical landscaping of garden fish ponds
 To my knowledge, this is the best book ever produced on how to construct pools, waterfalls and streams in any style and in any position. We stock it in all of our shops as the most reliable guide available on how to build any sort of water garden. Peter Wheeler Aquajardin Managing Director and owner.
 
 A valuable detailed DIY manual approach to water garden landscaping of ponds. It's full of very highly practical landscaping pond sketches that will allow even the most inexperienced to successfully cost, design and complete the perfect pond, waterfall or stream for the garden. It's unique not only in content but design too ... the book is printed on heavy board and is designed to open out completely flat so that it can be used "on site" even in windy conditions. Read more about the book here. Buy the book here and get two free gifts with it ... The Perfect Pond Recipe Book

Landscaping ponds (using pond liner) on uneven ground .. tools & materials required:

• 3foot straight edge. This could be a good piece of timber (perhaps 2inches by 1inch) that has an un-curved, unwavering edge to it as you look along the edge from one end to the other.
• A very heavy hammer.
• As long a spirit level as you can find. A 'Dumpy' builders level can be hired from a tool hire merchant. These need two people to operate them, but they help you find levels very accurately when landscaping ponds and are indispensable for a large landscaping ponds project. Levels that shoot out a laser spot to a level some yards away are a useful new invention for pond landscaping and pond construction.
• Several stout pegs., some longer than the depth of the pool, others just longer than the depth of the marginal shelf.
• Materials ... sand, cement, pond liner, edging stone, 4 inch concrete blocks

Preparation and siting for the pond

Lay down a rope or hose pipe mark the pond shape then cut and remove the turf within this pond shape .... for sloping ground make a rough leveling of the planned area by digging away the soil from the high end. This will leave a bank surrounding part of the final pond surface area. This bank can be excavated further back than the pond perimeter if you like. What you need to achieve is a relatively flat area of ground so that you can mark out the perimeter as you see in the sketch to the left. You are now ready to stake out this "level" ground with wooden pegs.

Landscaping ponds - Pegs for the perimeter and For Planting Shelf Levels

You'll need wooden pegs to go around the pond perimeter. To mark out the perimeter of the landscaping ponds area and to make an initial dig down to the planting or marginal shelf the pegs may not need to be more than 30cm (12 inches) long since they are just going down to the marginal shelf level. Each peg will be marked using an indelible pen at the required shelf depth. For example if you plan the first shelf to be 9 inches lower than the absolute rim of the pond and if the pegs are 12 inches long make the line 3 inches from the bottom of each peg. Now knock all the pegs into the ground so that all pegs are level with the ground and each other ..... place the flat edge across the tops of the stakes to make sure they are level with each other. It's a good idea to paint the tops white so that you can get a good appreciation of the shape of the final pond from a distance to make sure you're happy before you start digging. At this stage each peg is protruding a tiny bit and you can now start digging until you reach the black line marker at a depth of around 9 inches.

Landscaping ponds - mark your Long pegs for Pond depth

As stated above mark the short pegs with an indelible line at 23cm (9ins). This mark will be an indicator to you when you have dug down to the marginal shelf level. Mark the long pegs with an indelible line near the bottom of the peg that will indicate the final depth of your excavation (adding 5cm for a layer of sand to the mean landscaped pond's depth that will cushion the liner) e.g. for a pond 60cm deep(2ft) add 5cm (2ins), the total depth excavated 65cm (26ins). 

Choose one of the long pegs as a datum peg for the pool water level and drive it into what you consider to be the centre of the pond's surface area to roughly the water level you foresee. IMPORTANT ... The top of this peg will mark the level to which you drive in all the other pegs. Keep them less than 2.5 metres (8 ft) apart. Save the longer ones for gauging the depth of the excavation later if you can. Mark the perimeter with shorter ones, but in steeply sloping situations you may need the long ones to mark the landscaped ponds perimeter on the low side unless you make a pre-flattening of the ground as suggested earlier.

Keep all the pegs roughly 15cm (6ins) inside the line of your proposed landscaped ponds perimeter. If there is turf roughly undulating around the site it may be necessary to remove some of it in the landscaped ponds area to get a clearer view of the lie of the land .... maybe even a few inches of soil.

Landscaping ponds - why so much trouble?

I expect you are beginning to wonder why you just don't launch into it straight off , having dedicated so much effort so far. Well at this stage at least you haven't dedicated any hard earned cash nor made a decision you cannot reverse. Having got this far, now you can sit back, look, consider and firmly decide upon any possible changes. You can gauge the size precisely and the amount of engineering involved and the amount of expense effort and hard landscaping required. Landscaping ponds on uneven ground needs much more thought and planning than for other landscaping ponds ideas.