Building a water garden

[suzyhomemaker09]

Ok...everyone who knows the Ozarks know of our never ending battle with the rocks that grow here. DH and i have been discussing the merits and aesthetics of adding a water garden in our back yard, this back yard slopes gently away from our home. As I understand we'd need it to be more than 2 feet deep to be able to overwinter koi and we do want those.
The problem is about how we are going to go about getting it made. I am picturing a load of dirt being brought in...price for a load of screened dirt is just under $200. I see that being dumped and leveled out that way we have a place to make a deep end and nice soft dirt to work with.
DH thinks that we can just dig it with shovels like all of the online and book pictures show. That the 14 cubic yards that a truck full of dirt is would not be enough anyway.
Enter also into the picture that the area we are planning on putting it in has the possibility of having water pipes and or electrical lines there.
Am I an idiot? or does my idea have merits...is DH right..or are we both right in our own way? How would you proceed?
I know there is a place near me that had several truckloads of dirt brought in...they stacked rock and worked for a long time and made a stream across the backyard complete with several waterfalls it is beautiful.

[The Paw]

The following thoughts occur to me:

1. the "nice soft earth" may end up compacting under weight, so you would want to account for that.

2. I would find out where any underground utilities might lie before I sited a pond or water garden. You would hate to have them dig it up to replace a line.

3. 14 yards of dirt may be a lot or may be a little, depending on how big your project is expected to be. I would be tempted to dig on site first, then bring in dirt as needed to build up low spots, etc.

Good luck.

[Maura]

our back yard was level, so the koi pond was dug by hand, 45" deep or better. See if you can find a pool, or something that would act as a pool, a container of some sort. Dig out an area so that you can level the container and have it half way in the ground. The area that is above ground is where you would landscape. Within the landscape, you would hide your filtration pipe. For filtration, we put a Tetra water pump in the pond and ran an airline from the pump up to a hill we made, and (with a ventral) pumped it into the bottom of a 100 gallon horse trough. The horse trough was filled 2/3 with lava rock, and on top of the lava rock we had potted plants (marsh marigold) and blue flag iris. The 100 gallon trough had a lip cut out and the water fell into a 50 gallon water trough (also had lava rock and plants), then fell into the pond.

You would use the soil you dug up to put around the pond, but you might have to bring some in, but not much.