Backyard pond basics: Advice for adding water features

Looking to spruce up your garden this spring? One option might be to add some water to your backyard. 

A water feature could be a pond, stream or even a birdbath, said Chris O’Connor, the regional service manager at Aquatica. It’s a company based in Wales, Wisconsin, that builds and services water features in gardens. 

“You can do a lot of different things with them,” O’Connor said. “But the really cool thing is it can bring tranquility to your backyard.”

O’Connor joined WPR’s “The Larry Meiller Show” to cover what you need to know before adding a pond or stream to your garden. 

The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. 

Larry Meiller: In your mind, what are the benefits of adding a water feature to your garden?

Chris O’Connor: The sound of water is just so relaxing — to be able to come home from a long, stressful day and just listen to the sound of water, watch your fish swimming around in the pond or the frogs hopping around. 

And some of the plants you can do in the water are just phenomenal. So there’s a lot of relaxation that can come from that, especially in our busy, hectic days that we have.

Caller from Madison: We put in a backyard pond as a family project. It holds about 200 gallons and the water is continually circulating. However, we can’t control the algae in the pond. We do have some koi [fish], and we just get this intense, feather-like algae that grows in the pond. What can you suggest? 

CO: Plants can be a really good, natural way to help filter some of the nutrients out of the water, because the fish are going to produce some nutrients as a byproduct when they eat. And that’s going to be food for either algae or plants. 

So if you have some plants in there, and you add some beneficial bacteria or an enzyme [that is fish safe], that’ll break down the nutrients.

LM: You have some of the most beautiful setups that I could ever imagine. You’ve got large ones and you’ve got small ones, too. Can somebody with a small backyard in the city of Madison have a water feature?

CO: Oh, absolutely, yeah. You know, the cool thing about water features is that every single one of them is custom designed. 

We use different stones for different textures. If you like sharp rocks or you like smooth features or if you want it to be more interactive — there are a ton of different options that you can do with stones. 

And we design features in areas as small as 4-by-4 feet. You can put in something that gets the water moving. Maybe you want something a little more decorative, or something that draws the birds in. 

Or if you want a really big feature and you have a ton of property, we’ve done them as big as golf course-sized features. You can really go anywhere in between and customize them to fit your space.

LM: What are you looking for in terms of where to place a water feature? Should you go for full sun or shady? Or doesn’t it matter?

CO: You can really work with either. The main thing with full sun is you’re going to be able to have a wider selection of plants that are going to grow really well there. There are some pond plants that do great in shade, too. So it’s not like if you’re in the shade you can’t have any plants. 

You’re really looking for a location that you’re going to want to sit by and maybe have a drink next to the fire. So don’t necessarily tuck it away in the far corner of the property. 

A pond is something that’s nice to have by a patio or a deck, where you can view it from the inside of the house and go out and enjoy it. The location is going to be based on a lot of things. I wouldn’t say that it matters too much if there are or aren’t trees. We can work with any location.