Pond shelves

beckyjaneplantirSu7H1K

Hi everyone. I know I've asked questions about adding a pond to my garden before but I'm after a little bit more of advice please. It can only be a small pond as I have a small garden, I'm thinking about 1 metre squared not much more than that. I've read that there should be pond shelves for planting different species of flowers. I'm wondering with such a small pond how wide the shelves should be and how many shelves will actually fit? I know to add a beech on one side for hedgehogs and other animals to be able to climb out. 

Posy

It depends on what you want to plant. If you browse the sites of some pondplant specialists you will find all sorts of illustrations of planting and of the depth and width of the shelves. You can get an impression of how it will look as the plants establish and choose the look you like.

Fairygirl

I had a very small pond in this garden until last spring. Probably around the size you're considering. There was an old stump from a small tree that had been removed, and other planting, to one side, and eventually at the front.
It really just had one shelf for plants - an Equisetum and a corkscrew rush. The latter got moved into the edges later beside the Caltha [in the pic]
It had water hawthorn and a pygmy water lily for covering the main surface area, and plants in among the edges, and surrounding area. Beached edges at both ends.
The shelf was around 6 - 8 inches wide, which was fine for a couple of baskets. You don't need masses of plants in the pond if you have enough round the edges and beyond   
This pic was from several years ago and the plants were quite young.

LeadFarmer

I made this small pond in my garden last autumn, it's about 1.5m in diameter and about 60cm deep. You can see the shelves I made around the pond to stand plants on, the front has more of a sloping beach..

beckyjaneplantirSu7H1K

Thank you 😊  where did you all get your liners from, is there a company you'd recommend? 

Fairygirl

I normally use Bradshaws for mine, but there are several. Pondkeeper is another 

LeadFarmer

beckyjaneplantirSu7H1K said:

Thank you 😊  where did you all get your liners from, is there a company you'd recommend? 

I ordered from Bradshaws website.
Use an online pond liner calculator to work out how much liner you need, using the pond length, width and depth measurements. Maybe worth adding a bit more just to be safe.

Don't cut your liner to size until you have filled it with water, other wise the weight of the water could pull it down laving you short.