A Conversion

A few years ago, friends retired and bought a house in a village. They were quite pleased with the house but not with the in-ground swimming pool. Being keen gardeners, they resented the fact that almost half of the lot was given over to the pool and the cement patio surrounding it. They decided to transform it into a garden pond.

The new pond

By regulation, smiming pools have to be enclosed by a fence. They kept the fence and it produced an enclosed garden with lots of vertical spaces for climbers.

Most of the new enclosed pool garden is hidden by climbers growing on the fence and planting in front of it.

The paved area around the pool makes a nice broad walkway with room for lots of potted plants. A flower bed has been created between the fence and the paved area. All the edge of what was the swimming pool has been made less obvious with flat rocks.

 The deep and shallow ends have been separated by a series of the same flat rocks and the shallow end was  filled up with soil to create a bog.

Shallow and deep ends separated by flat stones.

The bog in what was the shallow end of the swimming pool.

The bog is surrounded by flat stones and potted plants

Many of the plants are potted because there is a lot of flat area for pots and most of the plants they hold, like Agapanthus, have to be taken to a sheltered area in winter.

 On one side of the new garden pool they built a pergola over a sitting area.

An that is how a swimming pool became a pond.