Koi Pond Garden Nursery Landscaping Guide
Koi Pond For A Beautiful Garden
By Rodger G Allenby
Many people love their gardens very dearly, and work hard to
make them unique and beautiful. Sometimes, building a koi pond
is exactly the thing to turn their garden from merely beautiful
to something distinctive.
Koi fish are a brightly colored and patterned species of carp
that are now considered Japanese, but which are thought possibly
to have originated in Persia. Because of their jewel colors and
striking patterns, they are one of the favored kinds of fish in
specially built garden ponds, partly as decoration and partly
as an enhancement to the natural environment.
A Big Pond For Big Fish
The first recommendation everyone gives about creating a koi
pond is to make it big. Koi are fish that can eventually grow
quite large, but collectors often enjoy this species so much that
they keep adding new ones to the pond, with different colors and
patterns.
So you need to review your options with the pond design and may
require a lot of space. It should probably be quite deep as well,
to give the fish room to move and breathe. About one fish per
100 gallons is a general rule, and a depth of five to eight feet
is probably sufficient. This will also help protect the fish from
predators.
Reducing The Danger From Predators
These ponds need protection in several ways, in fact. The depth
will help reduce danger from many sorts of predators, from raccoons,
to cats, to kingfishers. Great Blue Herons can do a lot of damage
as well, so some builders even recommend placing a bird net over
the pond.
The fish also need protection from direct sunlight, so a koi
pond should have some shade, yet without being directly under
trees and getting clogged with falling leaves. Water lilies can
help provide some of this needed shading effect.
Filters And Heaters For Your Pond
In addition to being in just the right setting, and at just the
right depth and size, a healthy koi pond will also need good equipment
to help it stay that way. A store that sells pond supplies will
be able to give you much good advice about filters and so on,
but remember also that a heater might be necessary if your local
climate gets quite cool during the winter.
You’ll need to keep the pond from freezing over, and if you get
a very cold winter climate, then you might be wise not to create
this type of pond at all. But if you can do so, this pond of koi
may elevate your garden from something beautiful into something
quite sublime.
About the Author:
Rodger G Allenby has written a number of articles on pets, gardening and landscaping including
Bird Baths,
Fish Ponds,
Hummingbird Feeders,
Gardening Tools,
Backyard Ideas,
Backyard Landscaping Pictures,
Potting Table,
Backyard Fences.
Keep a lookout for more of his articles on this website.
Little Known Facts About Fish Ponds ....
What types of fish ponds are better suited for backyards?
This once again all depends on how much land
you actually have. In more rural areas a backyard could consist
of acres whereas in a suburban or urban area the backyard may
be very limited in size. Even if you have a tiny backyard you
can still create a fish pond.
Small backyards are very well suited to
small ornamental ponds that are no more than a couple feet wide
and a couple feet long. You can even go smaller but you have to
keep in mind that the smaller the pond is, the smaller your fish
need to be. You also need to pay attention to what type of terrain
your backyard consists of.
If it is all sloping then you may have
to level a portion off. If it is very rocky and hard, you may
find digging the pond to be an effort in futility. Another factor
that you need to consider is the climate. If you live in a colder
climate you may not be able to have a small fish pond.
Larger fish ponds can usually handle the
colder weather because there is far more room for the fish to
go. This is not the case with small ornamental ponds.
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