Water features

Water features have always played a significant role in garden design - be it your own peacefully babbling brook or fountain, a Mediterranean swimming pool, a pond rich with plants and wildlife – our professionals offer you advice for those customised designs to make your dream water feature come to life in a safe and accurate execution.

To fully enjoy your natural swimming pond, its location needs to be well thought through and designed in such a way that it combines your wishes with a particular environment.

Contact us for a free and unbinding consultation or visit on +43 (1) 606 45 95 or office@ecowork.at (Arge Öko Plan Sanierung GdbR)

Things to consider when building a Swimming Pond

  • Swimming ponds are ingenious systems where two separate areas interact: the swimming area – free of water plants for unhampered swimming pleasure – and the vegetation zone for natural cleansing and filtering of the water..
  • In choosing the right location there are 3 factors in particular to take into consideration:

    • Light conditions – many water plants such as water lilies thrive best in direct sunlight.
    Shade – oxygen concentration sinks with increasing warmth, this promotes the production of algae.
    Trees on the waterside – possible root penetration of lining foil, falling leaves (nutrient input) in autumn.

  • Size gives the pond ecological stability. A water surface of 4-5m² (50-55ft2) is sufficient for a garden biotope. A swimming pond requires at least 100m² (1,000 ft2), a four-headed family would require a minimum water surface of 200m² (2,000 ft2), 100m² each for swimming and regeneration zone. Smaller ponds will require an additional filter pump.

Technical Composition of Swimming Ponds

  • The vegetation-free swimming area usual has a depth of 1.5-2m. The vegetation zone needs to be 0-1m deep; this is where a mixture of marsh and water plants continuously filter the water and enrich it with oxygen.
  • A sand levelling course of 5-10cm depth is covered by a fleece, to protect the foil (which should best be welded by a professional).
  • In the vegetation zone the foil is covered with a 10cm thick layer of plant substrate, a bit higher for water lilies and similar plants.

Maintenance of Swimming Ponds

  • In order to prevent the formation of algae, using a wide variety of plants and ensuring a low nutrient content are the best prerequisites for a well functioning swimming pond. This means less maintenance and therefore less interference with your swimming pleasure.
  • Springtime: remove dead plants, divide large plant balls, clean evergreens and reposition in the pond.
  • May-June: cut back vigorously growing plants. This is the time to plant new water plants.
  • Summer: remove nutrients, clean out blanket algae, cut back water plants and remove as necessary.
  • Autumn: Remove fallen leaves from the water surface (possibly install leaf net), cut back dead plants along the waterside and remove.
  • Winter: prevent complete icing over of the pond (i.e. with ice-free devices) to allow swamp gas (produced by decaying matter) to escape. Keep the surface free of snow so that evergreens can assimilate and produce the oxygen necessary for over wintering pond fauna.