For urban residents, yard space is an unheard of luxury. With apartment houses built right on the streets and a minimal amount of communal land in back of the buildings, there’s no way to plant a garden or cultivate a lot of flowers. You can, however, think on a much smaller scale. If you have access to a balcony or a deck, or even a fire escape, you can build a water garden in containers that will give you the feeling of an in-ground water feature. You’ll be able to hear the water running and observe tiny fish swimming, grow water plants, and take advantage of the serenity that only a water garden can offer. Water garden containers give you the foundation for constructing a watery microcosm in very little space.
Finding water garden containers isn’t as hard as selecting exactly what you want. A recommended capacity for a container is 15-25 gallons, and any kind of container in that size range can be used. You will also require containers to plant your water plants in, because plants should be grown in separate pots and then put into the water-filled container. It’s best to pick a container with a dark-colored interior, because the dark color will provide your pond with the perception of depth. Dark interiors are also more environmentally-friendly in that they won’t attract algae and yet they’ll hide the presence of any algae that starts to grow.
Your water garden needs to be located in a location where it will get at minimum six hours of sun every day. The majority of water plants don’t grow and flower well without at least that much sunshine, but some bog plants will be all right with less sun. The plants you choose for your garden should be varied for the best effect. Choose some that float, a few submerged, and emergent species when selecting the plants you want to incorporate into your garden. Plants serve the function of shading the water which, once again, diminishes the growth of algae. When you build a new water garden, however, you must expect your water to get cloudy after a couple of weeks. Just hang in there, though, and the plants and fish will slowly but surely start controlling the algae in the pond, and the water will begin to get clearer.
In addition to fish, you want to put a few snails in your water garden containers. Snails are critical in eating algae, fish waste products, and decaying organic matter. Small fish, such as guppies, are recommended for containers that are 20 gallons or smaller; larger than that you can try a couple of goldfish. Guppies and fish like that are perfect choices, because they adapt to changes in temperature well, and they eat those pesky mosquitoes.
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