Different Styles of Pond Surround

!±8± Different Styles of Pond Surround

In many cases, the pond surround is just as important to the overall appearance of the garden as the pond itself and it is important to plan the surround at the same time as the pond, otherwise the end result could be at best incongruous, and at worst, hideous. There are many styles of pond surround available, and I list a few of them below:

Wooden decking
Gardeners have been a little slow to adopt the largely American, Scandinavian and Far Eastern ideas of surrounding a pond with wooden decking. But, in recent years, dozens of manufacturers have emerged to make this a popular and affordable garden feature. Decking is warmer and more comfortable underfoot than traditional paving, blends well with the garden, and is more sympathetic to the concept of the garden being a 'living space' - the fabled 'outdoor room', or 'extension of the home'.

Rock and paving
Natural and/or artificial stone can make ideal partners for a pond, whether as paving around the edge, walling to form the sides, or rock and stone to form the water feature itself. Natural quarried stone is ideal for many gardens -particularly if you want your feature to be sympathetic to the local environment - but most, particularly real slate, can be extremely expensive to buy. Artificial paving and walling (which is mostly concrete) can look very realistic, is cheaper and often simpler to lay.

Beds and borders
These are, arguably, as natural-looking as any other style of pond surround. Plants growing over and into the water can be most appealing, especially with wildlife ponds and bog gardens, where there is often no defining line between the water and the planted areas. The key here is to allow access points at strategic places around the pond's edge, so you can gel close to the water.

Lawns
The least natural, and most frustrating pond surround of all is an area of maintained lawn. It is least natural because it doesn't occur in the wild -grass banks may run down to highland streams, but the grass is not maintained in an ornamental sense. I use the word 'frustrating', because, if you do cut grass close to a pond, you cannot avoid getting clippings onto the water surface.