An Interesting Example of Water Garden Landscaping

Here's a really simple idea to use for you water garden landscaping that I've seen done twice in simple backyard landscaping projects.

The main idea here is that you take a relatively small backyard and make it “bigger” by adding a deck out of the main back door. I centered the door on the back of the house but you can build your deck in any configuration to match the backyard.

The trick though as the picture and diagram shows is that you build your pond first, then you put the deck over top of the pond so it resembles a cottage dock.

You landscape around the edge of the backyard pond (and hopefully you have a fence to plant vines on as well as our pictured example does.




The pond goes underneath the deck so it appears to be a dock extended out onto a lake. Leaving ground space between the deck and the water makes the space seem smaller (but it can be done)

The deck is constructed on pillars onto flat supports on the pond bottom. A flat cement walkway paver will do an adequate job without punturing the liner (put an extra layer of pond-fabric or liner under the paving stone if you're concerned about the weight. It is also attached to the house so it doesn't shift

Water can be left in for the winter or drained depending on whether you're growing fish and the depth of the pond. And yes, fish are vastly amusing when you have company but you have to encourage people not to throw food into the pond.

You do your weeding and maintenance on really hot days when it's fun to wade in the pond. :-)

And you have an entertainment area that takes advantage of the majority of the space in the backyard with the deck.

I've seen this done on a small scale, shown here, and on a much larger scale when the pond was used for growing some amazingly large koi.

So that's the deal. Put in a deck over a pond in a small backyard and that's simple water garden landscaping.