The Pond Doctor: Planning & Maintaining a Healthy Water Garden

by Helen Nash

Book Overview

"Everything one needs to know about a water garden is here: selecting a site, construction, building a waterfall, safety and water-quality tips, pumps and filtration, prevention of algae, and cleaning and maintaining a pond. This practical guide is illustrated throughout with color photographs."- Booklist . "Chock-full of information... an extremely useful and highly recommended resource." - American Horticulturist.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0806906871
• ISBN13: 9780806906874
• Release Date: December 1995
• Publisher: Sterling
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.5" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

Good book, not an entertaining read

I'm planning a water garden for my back yard and thought this book might help. It has a lot of information, but is not that easy to read. It seamed to me that all the info was written on post-its, organized in to catagories, and printed. It will make a great reference book when I'm having a problem and need to find a quick answer. But it's not the kind of book that has you start on page one and read straight through.

A must for all pond owners!

Even though the title has "planning" in it, the focus of the book deals with maintenance issues. Ms. Nash not only discusses water quality, algae issues, plant propogation, and plant and fish disease, but also how to prevent problems, and how to repair the problem once detected. There are also great photos that illustrate some of the more common pond problems. I have read better books on pond planning (her other book,"The Complete Pond Planner" and the Ortho series books are great), but I have found none that address the above issues as well as this one. A must read for all pond owners!

Most informative and easy to understand

I bought the book for my sister, but after previewing it had to keep it for myself. It is a wonderful reference book, tells me more than I thought it would in a "basic" book, but is also simple to understand as well as comprehensive in its delivery. Starting a pond or having one, this is a definite staple!

Excellent source of practical information.

This books offers both basic information for beginning water gardeners and nuggets of knowledge for those more experienced or professional installers. The presentation is very straightforward and concise. I find the book very enjoyable to browse and it has a good index for use as a reference. If you are starting a water garden library - start here.

If you have or want a pond/water garden, read this book!

A thorough and well-presented book thattakes you from pond siting and constructionthrough fish and plant selection to control of pests and maintenance. Nash is refreshingly honest about the pros and cons of various choices, and lets you know when a suggested plant or fish is appropriate for your climate. The many full-color pictures are very helpful, especially in identiying insect pests. Includes photos of some very interesting designs, including one with a piano theme! Deserving of all the raves from reviews by AHS and others.