The Master Book of the Water Garden: The Ultimate Guide to Designing and Maintaining Water Gardens

I found this book quite helpful in designing and building my first pond. While I can consider very few books perfect representations of their topics this book helped me make intelligent decisions. Regardless of what book you pick on the subject you will find that there is a lot to learn in pondkeeping that is simply not addressed adequately in books, but rather by "trial and error". Regarding this book, I found the section on fish is not very detailed, so those interested in koi keeping will benefit from a book such as The Essential Book of Koi: A Complete Guide to Keeping and Care,which is quite good.

We recently "inherited" a small pond when we moved to a new home and this has been a great resource to maintain the pond

This author describes the historical aspect of ponds, the current trends of ponds and the types of plants and animals found in each type of pond. He lists problems and solutions. Very insightful. I like the ID stuff at the end listing each important plants and animals found in a pond. (He doesn't have turtles though).

When my husband & I bought a house recently, it came complete with a man-made pond, stream, and waterfall.I borrowed every book about ponds and water features from the library. They didn't own The Master Book of the Water Garden. Too bad. This is the most complete book on the subject I've come across.To begin with, it has wonderful pictures and makes a great coffee table book, even if you're not looking for water garden information.There are two indices: one that's general and one that's specifically for plants. Throughout the book are "Problem Solving" asides. Sometimes entire pages are dedicated to answering questions about fish, plant depth, water quality, and much more.But I thought its strength was the amount of very specific information on the subjects it covers. Other books dealt with just ponds, or waterfalls, or wet and dry streams. This book covers all that as well as fountains, water meadows, bogs, and containers.Discussions include bridges, decking, walkways, lighting, filters, propagating plants, & the various kinds of liners. Cleaning and maintaining the water feature is included, as well as seasonal upkeep. Designing your water garden, picking plants, choosing a location, & deciding on size are just a few of the subjects covered. And fish subjects aren't limited to just koi and goldfish.I was most interested in how to drain and repair a leaking pond. This has been difficult information to find. Swindells even tells you what to do with the fish while you're making repairs or changes to the pond.My only criticism is that the plant index uses the Latin names for the plants. Though it does include common names, in many instances, if you're not sure what you're looking for, a specific plant may be a bit difficult to find. I must admit that there are full color pictures of the plants in the book, though my favorite water plant, horsetails, isn't included.This book is already well thumbed and the pages wrinkled from where they've been wet. In other words, it's useful and used.