Customer Reviews

The Living Pond: Water Gardens with Fish & Other Creatures

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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Creating a water garden is yet another way to attune oneself with nature. This water garden concept is actually a pond. Author Helen Nash provides clear basic instructions on how to both build and maintain a pond with live fish, turtles or birds. You no longer have to envy the tranquility of Jane and Henry Fonda's "On Golden Pond" shimmering screen images. You may be inspired to begin building your own pond as soon as you finish reading this book. Ms. Nash has crafted a fine book for those who appreciate the beauty of nature. Leave the tension in the workplace. Come home to the peace and tranquility of a living pond in your very own backyard.

First off let me just say this book is absolutely amazing! If you are building a pond for fish, turtles, birds, and other wildlife I'd recommend getting this before you buy any of those other pricey versions. Even if you're simply building a garden pond for plants theres still much you could learn from this, such as how to rid your plants of pests without harming wildlife (even how to keep small fish and plants safely together to reduce mosquito populations). It starts from the building of the pond being very in depth with the different types of construction methods, what to put on the bottom of your pond, how to design and everything. Then it moves on to selection of species to choose from with detailed profiles of most of them, and then the types of ponds best suited for them (well it only goes to goldfish pond and Koi pond but it explains a bit how different types of fish would survive in such ponds). And it explains various filtration methods and maintenance to keep fish healthy and the pond well maintained, it also has another section soley devoted to fish illness, treatment, and such. Then it goes on to describe different turtle species the types of ponds they require and their health issues. Lastly it talks about wildlife and how they are attracted to/effected by ponds, and our importance in preserving certain species such as frogs that come visit, and how to prevent predators from decimating fish populations. All and all very informative book, beautiful pictures, it dosent get too much better then this really unless you want something that's SUPER detailed about each individual animal (ie Koi, turtles, etc..), and want pictures step by step detailing pond construction and maintenance. My only fault with it was that it didn't give a more deatiled listing of plants to choose, and it didn't overly detail which individual plants were best for what. However that overlooked strongly recommended if I could give it more stars I would.

I was looking to create an ecologically sustained system in the pond I built in my backyard and this book was a great help about diverse topics. Pleasant to read, and great picture ideas too!