At the end of the fall season one year, I found a semi-hard pond kit on sale at a local home center. It was a great value so I picked it up. I mostly followed the instructions that came with the kit but I had to improvise for portions of the installation. I am by no means an expert in pond building; this was my first attempt and it worked fairly well. I often visit the local pond store for advice and supplies; they are a great resource for pond info.
Pick a pond.
Pick out a location. We wanted our pond close to the deck so we can enjoy when we sit on the deck. A nice side benefit of this was that it made running the electric really easy.
Lay out template, if pond comes with one, and mark the areas you need to dig. You can use flour, spraypaint or whatever is convenient to mark the template edge.
Dig away. I used a hole digger and a spade shovel. For my pond, the instructions indicate to dig down 21 inches for the center most section. The ledge section is dug down to ten inches or so.
Test fit the pond and dig some more to make it fit. It tends to be a little trial and error to get the form to fit nicely in the hold you dig. You can use your hand or a small hand shovel to make the the hole fit the pre-formed pond. You will probably find that you need to add dirt in some spots and remove some from others.
Lay bricks around the top edge of the pond. This step was not part of the packaged instructions but I found that I needed to give some additional support to the pond form.
Build mound of dirt to hold the cascading water fall section.
Rinse out the pond. If you are like me, you probably got a bit of dirt in the pond during the previous steps. Rinse the walls of the pond and suck up the dirty water with a shop vac or run it out with a pump and hose.
Now add the fountain pump. You can hide the hose and the electric cord from the pump under the cascading waterfall.
Fill it with water and adjust the diverter to controll how much goes through the fountain and how much goes through the waterfall.
Add some landscaping, plants and fish. We added a few dozen rocks. Add the proper chemicals as directed by your local pond store. We left the fish in the bag as directed by the pond experts for a half hour or so to let them adjust to the water temperature.
Update
"Build it and they will come" must refer to the frogs. It did not take long for a pair of frogs to find the pond. I do not know if one chased the other away but after awhile, we could only find one frog. Maybe the other is still around. They actually blend so well with the background that they are a challenge to find.
