My kids decided that it would be a great idea to have a garden pond. Once the idea took root they were relentless until I caved (only a matter of time) and we decided to create our very own water garden.

I spent some time browsing around the local Lowes in the garden section and found some pond supplies. I looked at the prices of various prefabricated pond kits. Far too expensive. There were the molded plastic pond shells which were also very expensive, but there were also pond liners in various sizes. Evidently, you dig your hole, spread your pond liner into it, fill with water, and voila! I looked closely at the pond liners. They were still pretty expensive for what was essentially a black plastic sheet. Thick plastic though. Hmmmm.... I returned to the hardware section and cruised the aisles until I found are area I vaguely remembered from a previous visit. Yes! A shelf full of rolls of plastic sheeting in various thicknesses. I settled on a roll of 6mm black plastic which would be big enough to double over for the size of the pond we had in mind. That would give us a 12mm lining. Almost the same thickness as the commercial pond liners but 1/3 the price!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... my kids had marked out the shape they wanted for the pond with an old clothes line. Roughly a figure 8 shape about 10 feet long by 5 feet wide. Time to get out the shovel!

I started to dig. I filled a wheel barrow with dirt. It seemed there was barely a dent in the ground. We are fortunate in that our yard backs on to some woodland. I rolled the wheel barrow into the woods and dumped the pile of dirt. Dug some more, dumped some more. Twenty barrow loads later the hole was taking shape but I was no where near done. I dug and dumped, dug and dumped, for most of the morning until the hole was done. Trust me, there is a lot more dirt in a small pond than you'd expect. The ground in our area has a lot of clay just below the surface. This is a pain to dig.

At it's deepest point in the larger of the two circles comprising our figure 8 shape the hole was almost two feet deep. About 18 inches in the smaller circle. With some creative spade work I had made a sort of step running all around each circle about 6 inches deep and 9 - 12 inches wide. The idea was to use this ledge for water plants. When the hole was completed I had the kids get to work smoothing it out and digging out any broken roots or sharp stones.

Now for the liner. With my kids providing as much hindrance as possible I unrolled the plastic sheet. It was pretty big. Almost enough to do a triple layer liner. With kids banished to the swingset I managed to get the sheet laid out smoothly on the grass and double it over. I then placed it over the pond hole and held it in place with a few bricks. I placed the end of the garden hose in the hole and turned on the water. As the water rose, the plastic liner was forced into the shape of the pond and I kept moving the bricks outward so they wouldn't be dragged into the water. After half an hour, the pond was full within an inch of the edge. I trimmed the excess liner within six inches or so of the edge of the pond with a large pair of scissors.

I had a bunch of old house bricks and some flat stones stacked by the garage so the kids and I placed these around the edge of the pond to make a distinctive border and hide the plastic edge. Wow. The pond looked great! A job well done and definitely Miller Time!