Today homeowners are rediscovering the advantages of a backyard pool. While a pool can cost anywhere from $100 to $3,500 or more depending on materials and plants, a small water garden can still come in under $100. Follow these 10 simple steps and create your own sensory experience that only water can bestow.

1 – Decide on the type of water garden you want

With flexible liners, you choose the dimensions that suit your needs, then cut the liner to fit. Liners made of PVC or EPDM rubber are more durable than polyethylene. You can find them at home-improvement stores and garden centers.

2 – Determine the location and size:

The best spot is one that is fairly level, somewhat open, and receives at least five hours of direct sun. Choose an area away from trees and any runoff from rain that might affect the pool’s ecosystem. Select a site near the house for easy access to an electrical outlet equipped with a ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI). Most backyard pools range in depth from 8 inches to 3 feet. Plan on 3 to 4 feet deep in colder regions of the country. Deeper pools also stand up to summer heat and winter freezes.

3 – Dig in:

Using a garden hose or rope, mark the outline of your pond on the ground, then excavate the site to the desired shape. Slightly slope the sides inward to the desired depth, or dig a shelf (about 12 inches wide by 8 to 12 inches deep) around the inside perimeter to accommodate potted water plants. Check to confirm that the outer edges are level.

4 – Prep the space:

Remove any rocks or tree roots from the sides and bottom of the hole so they won’t puncture the liner, then rake the area smooth and tamp the soil firmly in place. Cover the bottom and sides of the excavated area with an underlayment such as a commercial underliner or 2 to 3 inches of damp sand. This will help cushion and further protect the pond liner.

5 – Install the pond liner:

To determine the size liner 
you’ll need, measure the pool’s length and width, then add twice the maximum depth plus 2 feet. For example, a pool that is 10 feet long by 7 feet wide and 2 feet deep will need a 16 x 13-foot liner (length is 10 + 4 + 2 = 16; width is 
7 + 4 + 2 = 13). This will allow for a 12-inch overlap around the pool’s perimeter. Center your liner loosely over the hole and unfold it, leaving an even overlap around the pool’s perimeter. Stretch out and smooth the liner into place so 
that it fits snugly on the bottom and up the sides. Minimize the wrinkles, but leave a few folds where the sides curve to allow for slack.

6 – Cover up:

Cover the pond liner with a 2- to 3-inch layer of pea gravel, or use smooth rocks with pea gravel poured in-between. This will lengthen the life of the liner and give your water garden a more natural appearance.

7 – Finish edges:

Place stones or boulders around the outer edge to hold the liner in place. For a more natural appearance, strategically graduate the stones up to and over the rim of the pool. Trim any excess liner around the edge so that a 12-inch overlap remains.

8 – Fill with water:

Place a garden hose in the center of the pool and fill with water to within a few inches from the top. As water flows in, smooth out the liner by folding and pleating portions of the material.

9 – Add plants:

Tuck in moisture-loving plants (see sidebar for suggestions) around the outer edges to soften the rocks, then add any aquatic plants to help filter the water and keep algae under control. Water lilies and other floating aquatic blooms should ideally cover 50 percent to 65 percent of the pool surface. Want to add a little life to your project? Goldfish are most suited to a small pool. A koi pool, however, needs to be larger in size—at least 10 feet by 10 feet and ideally 3 to 4 feet deep.

10 – Create a balance:

Maintenance is minimal if you establish a balance of plants, fish, and other aquatic life. In addition to floating plants, each square foot of water surface should support one bunch of submerged (oxygenating) plants, small fish (about two inches in length), and one pond scavenger, such as snails and tadpoles. Add water during summer as needed to maintain the proper level.

Don’t have the time or space to build an outdoor water feature? Bring it indoors with a tabletop fountain. These self-contained fountains come in a variety of soothing designs, and many 
include space for plants. Prices start at under $100. Available at home-improvement and garden-supply centers or online at sites such as amazon.com or simplyfountains.com.

Just Add Water The Saturday Evening Post

Several years ago my wife and I rented a house that had, attached to its hindquarters, a screened-in back porch. Though it was our vacation and we had made ambitious plans for the week, the pull of the screened porch proved too great, causing us to scrap our agenda and spend our days reclining in twin hammocks, reading, beyond the reach of the horseflies and mosquitoes.

Over the next few years, I revisited that pleasant porch many times in my memory, recalling the cool breeze circulating around me, the gentle throb of the evening crickets, the sweet iced tea within arm’s reach, the book tented upon my chest as I slid into a nap.

Winters rolled into springs and springs into summers. I turned 48 and felt the press of time, my life half spent without a screened porch to show for it. Then last spring, I phoned a builder, who walked around the house with me, studying it, looking for the obvious place to attach a porch.

“How about we build on a front porch?” he said.

“Wouldn’t work,” I told him. “We’d have to chop down my wife’s magnolias. She’d skin us alive.”

“We could always come off the kitchen,” the builder said. “Tear out this wall here, put a door there, move the garage over there.”

He stretched out his tape measure, punched some numbers into his calculator, and quoted a figure that was more than we’d paid for the house. Why is it that whenever I hire a builder, no matter how small or large the project, it inevitably involves the depletion of my entire savings?

By then, I had painted myself into a corner. Believing the porch’s cost would be modest, I had begun buying porch furniture and stacking it in our garage—a rocker, couch, swing, tables, chairs, a fan, a lamp by which to read, one sign forbidding the use of cell phones, and another sign prohibiting the use of dirty words, such as Congress, incumbent, Republican, Democrat, or Tea Party.

I’m a simple Quaker minister and have to watch my expenditures, lest I become the subject of gossip and speculation. Quaker ministers are granted wide latitude in theological matters, but have to toe the line when it comes to simplicity. There are Quaker porches and Episcopalian porches, and I am expected to know the difference. I thanked the builder, an Episcopalian, and sent him on his way.

Later that evening, my wife and I were discussing our prospective porch, and she suggested I build it. There was a time I would have tackled a job like that with confident enthusiasm, but that was several explosions ago, and I’ve grown more timid over the years. The phrase, “I’ll build it myself” has become codespeak for “How about I screw it up so bad we’ll spend twice as much paying someone else to fix it?”

A few days later my friend Dave Helton came to visit. Dave is a human encyclopedia, able to dredge up, sort out, and spew forth arcane bits of data on any topic related to the home.

“Why don’t you just hang mosquito curtains on your breezeway?” he asked. “People down South use ’em all the time. You put ’em up in the spring, take ’em down in the fall. Cost you a couple hundred bucks.”

I went online, entered the words “mosquito curtains,” and landed on a company in Georgia, owned by a man named Kurt, who, despite once having a job on Wall Street, looked reasonably trustworthy. I phoned Kurt, told him the dimensions of our breezeway, read him the numbers on our credit card, and four days later the UPS man delivered our mosquito curtains. Kurt had predicted it would take two hours to hang the curtains and thoughtfully included directions, which I ignored, adding several hours to the installation time. After hanging the curtains, I transferred the rockers, couch, swing, tables, chairs, fan, lamp, and signs from the garage to our breezeway. It was a tight squeeze, but I shoehorned them in.

There is much concern in our country these days about our national debt, climate change, and health care. My plan of action is to sit many hours on my porch this summer, drinking sweet iced tea and not thinking about them.

My Porch Plan The Saturday Evening Post