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There are few things I get more enjoyment out of more than the ornamental water garden in my backyard. This winter I built an above-ground water garden near my house. I learned a lot along the way and plan to build another one in the (hopefully) not too distant future.

I didn't take as many photos along the way as I probably should have, but some here are some to give you an idea of the scale. Here's the "before' picture. Note the rather vacant and empty gravel area at the lower right of the photo near my new deck:

My 8 year-old son had seen a water garden at the local rock business where we bought the gravel (for under the deck) and immediately wanted a water garden of his own. My wife and I kicked the idea around and decided to make a water garden as part birthday present (for my son) and part family present.

Several trips to the quarry and the local home improvement store later, we had ourselves a nice little above-ground pond which blends nicely into the natural look and feel of our back yard. The result is shown below:

Once we got the water in and circulating, we added some inexpensive gold fish (and later rose-head minnows), and some water plants. This is how it looked in this spring (2007)

Closer views:

It's been a brutal summer here in Georgia, but the water garden is doing great. The plants shown here have literally exploded... That little plant inside the 'circle of rocks' in the center of that last photo is nothing more than impatiens. That little plant has grown huge now.

But my water iris hasn't done anything really and the lilly pads are just pads - no lillies. If anyone knows how to make them bloom, I would love to hear from you.

-Dave

9/8/07 update:

While other plants in the landscape have been wilting badly, checkout the white impatiens that I planted in my water garden in the spring:

Another view

As you can see, the impatiens are taking over the pond while other marginals (water iris) are pretty much doing nothing. The large white flowery bush near the waterfall all comes from the single plant shown in the spring photo.
I think next year I'll skip most of the fancy water plants and go straight to the impatiens. They work great as marginals, provide a lot of shade (to keep the water temperatures down), and are fierce bloomers.