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Pete did a real male thing a couple of years ago and promised to install a garden pond for his wife.  He managed to be too busy to do it last year, but his wife Linda has a keen memory for these things. 

For this past Christmas Linda got a pond pump.....just the pump.  Home Depot had the desired pre-molded pond form way up on some dusty top shelf and wouldn't get it down for Pete.  Not until at least the ice melted.  The great thing about a pre-formed mold is that half the job is done.

Pete was thinking  about going with a custom design...not to be creative, but to avoid the large boulders in the back yard!  The pre-formed ponds would make Pete bring in a back hoe or maybe a TNT expert.  No, really, a back hoe.  The ground has to fit the pre-formed pond and Pete's yard is not into being pushed about.  If you look closely at the photo, you will see that all those white things are rocks.  Just like ice bergs, the big guys are just below the top soil.  Welcome to New England.  You can also see that Pete has started playing with the design by using a garden hose to layout a possible shape. 

The first step is to decide what you really want to go for in a pond.  Bearing in mind that ponds need not only to be built, but maintained.  Think about things like:
    ? What style & size pond would best fit your yard and mood
    ? Do you want plants, fish, waterfalls, geysers, lights
    ? How much money do you want to spend
    ? Should you hire someone who actually knows what they are doing
    ? How much are you willing to spend
    ? Will you really spend time to maintain the pond or will you let it turn into a highly decorated cess pool

After a lot of playing with the garden hose to determine the pond shape, Pete used the outline to begin building side walls.  Many people just dig a hole level with the ground.  They forget that water run off will head straight for the pond.  In Pete's case, he also wanted to dig as little as possible due to the bazillion rocks in the ground.   Approximate dimensions are 4 X 3 feet and about 27 inches at the deepest part.  The depth of the pond is critical should you decide to go with fish, specific plants or some submersible pumps.  Japanese coy may need up to four feet or more so they can keep cool in summer.  

Pete was lucky to have a bunch of concrete blocks left over from some other project.  Otherwise he would have to add this item to the cost and transport line of the budget.  

Linda decided the location of the pond.  You see here that the developing pond is directly adjacent to a low wooden deck.  What you cannot see is a huge swimming pool exactly where Linda was standing for this picture.  The plant to your right, against the house was eventually removed.   The board spanning the walls was used to determine the depth of the hole.  

After checking to make sure the pump would have enough room to work at the bottom of the hole, Pete lined the whole pit with carpet pad.  He made sure the concrete block walls got extra padding. The heavy "plastic" liner can still be torn by a sharp edge during placement and through normal shifting after the pond is filled with water.   
Much to Pete's surprise, the black liner was as hot as a skillet on the one bright, sunny day he chose to again work on the pond.  He actually burned his bare feet and had to put on socks and sandals before he could continue work.   Gloves would have been a good idea too....

It may be a little hard to appreciate the water in this picture because of the black liner. Rest assured though, that  Pete was ordered to fill that thing before he even got one wall of stone put down. 
Look carefully, and you can see plants and a fish!   Somewhere other than Pete's World, you would want to complete the walls and landscaping before you begin breeding Coy.  It IS a good idea to fill the liner to check for leaks before dropping in the decorative stones.  

Almost complete.  Pete has the decorative stones in place, hiding completely the liner and concrete block walls.  Sometime in the process, Linda decided that a statue was in order.  (Costco is a dangerous place to visit.)  To make the little boy with a dragonfly more of the focus of the whole pond, Pete added a little stone overhang.  Water is pumped from the bottom of the hole (now a pond) through underground pipes to the statue where is gently tumbles over the stone ledge back into the pond.  Pete knew that there is going to be digging about this pond later, so he ran all the pump connections and pipes through PVC.  That should prevent a stray shovel from severing a line in the future. 

You have noticed the plastic yard edging in the photo above.  Linda has not decided yet how she wants to complete the area about the pond.  That will have to wait for next Spring.  For now, Pete will pack mulch around the stone wall.  Do not forget, this is New England.  The leaves are falling and the clouds look like snow.  

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