The Small Water Feature

Next to our new pond we have built a small water feature, some of you will have seen one or two photos of this during construction, but now that it is up and running I thought it would be a good time to pull together the various stages of construction.

The idea behind this pool was simple, to create some extra interest by the main pond, and also to create some noise. The new koi pond is a silent pond, with the water returns all under water. This reduces any cooling effects of cold weather on the returning water and also allows for a still surface though which it is easier to admire the koi.

In our initial plans for the new garden and pond we did not include this pool, but later when thinking about how we wanted to enjoy the space we realised that a pond without the sound of running water wouldn't feel quite right to us, so we amended our plans and made the third raised planting area a little smaller.

Sketch of the pool from the design stage of the garden (see here for other sketches), I'm quite pleased how close the finished product came to this sketch.

When we were building the raised bed we fitted rigid water pipes from the pool to the filtration so that we could pump the water though a pond filter. The pipes were solvent welded together to reduce the risk of leaks. For small water features like this there are lots of filter options, such as these from Bradshaws Direct, we opted for a pressurised canister style filter which should be more than adequate for dealing with the water volume in this pond (about 620 litres).

Once connected the pipes were covered over with roof tiles - to protect them and act as a reminder if we need to dig in that area again and then covered over to level this area. All of this soil/clay came from the what we extracted when we dug the main pond. The joints of each pipe were encased in concrete to give some extra protection.

The return pipe, protruding to allow us to create a small fountain with the water returning to the pond.
Once the pipe work was all connected and in place the rest of the raised bed could be constructed ready for filling with soil and then planting up.

Once complete the pool was fibre-glassed at the same time as the main pond. We could have used a pond liner, as we did when we built the existing pond, but decided that as we were having the main pond fibre-glassed it made sense to have this one done at the same time. 
Fibre-glassing complete and we could then finish off the coping stones around the pool, using the same grey/blue Indian sandstone as in the rest of the project.
The pump and filter are connected up in the filter house with valves to close off the water for ease of maintenance.

Once everything was set up we added a slate mulch to the bottom of the pool and a small group of larger slate stones for interest. These came from the Rockery Centre near to us that we blogged about previously.

And Voila, the completed pool, with the fountain. We can adjust the height of the fountain using clips under the water level to raise or lower the metal tube that protrudes from the water, allowing us to play with the height and sound of the water.

Now everything is finished I'm really glad we included this feature.

Gaz