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Construction of Barrel Water Gardens

Barrel water gardens are an excellent alternative to in-ground ponds if space or physical constraints are limiting your alternatives. In addition, barrel water gardens are less expensive, quick, moveable, and require no edging. Probably the outstanding factor influencing barrel gardening has been their practicability. Using barrel water gardens, water gardening can be carried on in a space no larger than six square feet. The basics of the barrel water garden are just like those of the in-ground ponds. These can be as simple as putting a flexible PVC liner in a whisky barrel, filling it with 6 inches or more of a good clay-loam soil should be placed in the bottom and pressed down firmly and evenly. Water lilies should then be planted in the center of the barrel with submersed aquatics surrounding them. In small tubs, only one water lily should be planted. There are also ready-made barrel pools now on the market made of metal, fiber glass, or plastic and are quite suitable even though the original plans called for hardwood barrels which were sawed in half so as to make two gardens. They should be as large as possible for the space available and about 18-24 inches deep. Even old bathtubs or old wash tubs can be used so long as the depth is ample to allow six to ten inches of soil and ten to fifteen inches of water. Instead of planting into soil directly, choose some of the dwarf water lilies and put them in the barrel in their pots. Add water and snails and the pond is ready. If you live in the southern half of Texas and use hardy water lilies, they should over-winter successfully in the barrel. However, if you live in areas where the water in a barrel may freeze solid, or if you chose to plant tropical water lilies, you must over-winter the plants in an area that is cool but not freezing. Probably the most important factor to be considered when choosing a site is that the barrel should receive maximum sunlight, preferably from morning until night. When flowers and leaves begin to appear on the surface, they should be thinned out as much as possible so that the others will spread out and the blossoms will receive the full benefit of the sun. Barrels may be placed above the ground and very often match their surroundings but for best landscaping, they should be sunk in the ground. In this way the temperature of the water can be more evenly maintained. A suitable site in the garden for the pool would be a low spot where it would look most natural and then when it is placed in a hole, about an inch or two of the rim should be allowed to extend above the ground level. This will tend to keep soil from dropping into the pool and will also prevent heavy rains from running off the lawn and completely washing out the water garden plants.