Create a swimming pond in your garden

Principles of creating a swimming pond:

More Swim ponds have been created since the Kings Cross swimming pond development in 2015 publicised them. They have become very popular for people to enjoy in their own gardens too.

Using these in a garden setting:

• Allow 'swimming ponds' or 'natural swimming pools' to fit into & enhance your garden.
• Formal 'swimming ponds'  look like a separate, functional part of the garden often made in concete and inset with blue tiles.
• Organic Swimming ponds blend into their surroundings as natural & wildlife friendly areas of the landscape.
• Use plants to set the swim pond in its natural surroundings.
• Works as a complete ecosystem together with nature.
• Do not build under trees or you will create an imbalance of nutrients when tree leaves fall and rot in the water.
• Does not use chemicals or chlorine.
• Allows swimming in natural water that does not dry out the skin or hair.
• Outdoor swimmers can swim daily at their own convenience in their own unheated pool.
• To swim outdoors in this environment is good for your well-being & your health.

Children:

• Monitor children near deep water as the young are instinctively drawn to water.
• Children can swim without chlorine or disinfectants stinging their eyes.
• Enables supervised children to see nature close-up.
• You can construct different levels of water or platforms within the pond if you want to encourage children into a suitable depth before they are ready for the deep water zone

Wildlife:

• Brings the swimmer closer to nature.
• Encourages many species of wildlife creatures to colonise this new garden habitat & increases biodiversity.
• Combined with various seating areas inside or outside the water you can enjoy relaxing and watching the wildlife visitors to your water.
• Exclude fish and ducks from your swimming pond. Both create high levels of nutrient and bring a risk of unhealthy impurities.

How they work:

• Use vigorous growing filtration plants to keep the water clear.
• Vigorous growing plants use more nutrient so help reduce the potential for green algae.
• Have approx 50% of the total water surface area as a planted zone.
• Add a pump and pipework to keep the water circulating through the gravel
• Create bacterial conditions in the planting area among the plant roots to help cleanse the water.
• Encourage good, beneficial bacteria & micro-organisms to thrive.
• These help break down rotting organic matter

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  Swim pond (telegraph.co.uk)

  

  Mature area of pond planting

  
  

Constructing a swimming pond:

• Usually built by specialist swimming pond contractors or landscapers due to their compexity.
• Planning consent is not usually required unless you are in a listed building or in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
• Expensive to construct initially but less costly long-term with no chemicals to purchase
• At design stage consider who is going to use this pool, their planned use of it and their age/abilities.
• Create a deep area for swimming (1.8m/6ft - 2.4m/8ft deep).
• Create a barrier to stop gravel from the planted zone slipping over into the swim zone.
• Consider how you get in and out of the water - include steps or a solid area of slope, handrails, stepping stones on a solid base through the gravel area or a ladder up to a jetty.
• You will need electricity for a pump/biological filter system, air bubbles or lights.
• Install a circulatory pump system to keep the water moving around the system.
• Movement & oxygen is essential for oxygenation, preventing stagnant water & minimises any risk of algae.
• Include a biological filter unit
• to follow a construction through from start to finish see our Swim pond build in photos page.

  

  swimming pond construction before liner added

  

  swim pond, stream and plant shelf & walkway

  
  

  

  Planting shelf area

  

  Winter view showing change of water levels

  
  

Creating the filtration planting zone:

• Create a separate area for the plants at shallower depths - called a regeneration or filtration zone.
• Separate the swimming area from the plant area by a barrier/slight upstand that allows the water to flow across the top of the barrier between the 2 areas.
• This barrier should not allow materials like gravel to spill from the planting zone into the swimming zone.
• The plant area should be deep enough at the swim area edge to have 30cm/12" of gravel and 60cm/2ft of water over the top of the gravel for waterlilies.
• The gravel should then slope to the outer edge of the pool either by a slope in the ground construction or with more gravel.
• Finish with 5cm/2" of water above the gravel layer at the outer edge as rafting plants do not like to be planted in deep water.
• You do not need a soil substrate for the plants to grow in.

To read about which plants to use to filter the water in your swim pond -