Building a pond in your garden can turn an ordinary backyard into a beautiful watery oasis!

Imagine sitting in your garden and listening to the soothing sound of trickling water from a decorative fountain and watching colourful goldfish or Koi swim by.

Having flowing water in your garden will also add to the environment and attract more birds, butterflies and dragon flies. Also, although mosquitoes thrive in stagnant water they are repelled by flowing water such as in a pond with a waterfall or a fountain.

However, it is important to do a little bit of research before setting up your garden pond. There are many mistakes that homeowners commonly make when setting up a pond for the first time. Here are some of the common mistakes and how you can avoid them:

Choosing the Wrong Location

The very first thing to decide when creating a garden pond is where you will place it.

Once you have set up your pond you can’t simply move it on a whim, so make sure that you get the location right!

Many people choose to place their pond in an unused area of the property, but this can be a bad idea because the spot might be unused for a reason and it might be a waste to put a key feature in an area where no one will see it regularly.

Also, avoid placing your pond in a low area because it will gather pollutants and runoff and be very difficult to keep clean.

Choose a location where the pond will complement the overall design of your garden and feel of your outdoor living area.

It should be somewhat elevated and receive at least five hours of sunlight per day, rather than being in the shade of a tree where will become filled with dead leaves.

Underestimating the Work Involved

Setting up a pond in your garden takes a lot of work, from digging the pond to installing the pond liner to setting up the filtration system and landscaping around the pond.

Oftentimes, garden owners will underestimate how long it will take to set up their pond and they will need to call in a professional at the last minute to help them finish the job when they realize it is too much for them to handle.

Before setting up your pond, be realistic about how long it will take and whether or not you can do it on your own or if you need professional help.

Making Your Pond Too Shallow

Digging a pond is very difficult; so many people will give up as soon as they think that the pond is deep enough. However, oftentimes they have not done enough digging and the pond is too shallow to contain fish.

Fish need to have water of a certain depth for their survival and the larger the fish is the deeper the water needs to be.

In the colder areas, fish need to have deep enough water so that they can over-winter when the surface freezes. In the warmer climates, the water will become too warm if it is too shallow.

To find out how deep your pond needs to be, research the size of the fish species you are intending to keep in it.

Find out the maximum size that species will grow and from there you can determine how deep the pond needs to be. If in doubt, it never hurts to make it a bit deeper than it needs to be to leave room for liners, rocks and pumps.

English: Koi fish in the pond at the Gibraltar Botanic Gardens. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

These are just a few of the common mistakes that are made when setting up garden ponds, so make sure that you avoid them when you are building yours!