Everyone loves to have green around their home. If it’s filled with a few flowers, a small fountain or pond and a few love birds to wake you up every morning, what else do you needed to begin a day with? So, through this article let me tell you how to arrange the presence of water and living birds in your garden in a natural way.

Water bodies and fountains

Water bodies can be said to be the iris of a green garden. It not only beautifies your garden providing you a better visualization of nature, but also gives you a positive energy. It helps to maintain a cool climate around your home, cools your mind too! No doubt, no garden is complete without a fountain, a small stream or a pond.

Ponds are of different types

Depending on the total size and structure of your garden, you can determine what type of pond is needed for your garden. It may be still water or flowing one. The pond should catch one’s eye easily and it should get enough sunlight also. It’s better to avoid tree shades for pond construction. Otherwise dry leaves may make its water dirty easily; also your pond might be deficit of sunlight under cool shades. If pond is built at the end point of the landscape in a slope, drained rain water may get into the pond easily. Take this matter into consideration while building the pond. Nowadays depending on Vasthu for every construction is the latest trend. According to Vasthu presence of water is best in north or north-east directions.

Pond may be set in any shape you desire – amoeba, square, oval, rectangle, circle etc. Use water proof cement for concreting your artificial pond. Water body should be built taking into account the water level. Otherwise the water level may not be uniform in the visible surface killing the beauty of your pond.

During construction stage itself you should provide inlet and outlet for the flow of water. If you want a fountain and need to do lighting arrangements, you should include enough electric, plumbing and filtering settings also. After construction, fill the pond with water or cow dung solution and keep it so for at least one week. Otherwise your newly added plants and fish may die to the chemical substances present in the cement.

For the beauty of water bodies

Water body should match with the landscape. It should never appear to be artificially made. To attain this, you can fix pebbles, small metal chips, natural stones and a few plants at the edge of your pond. If you build a small path of stones that leads towards the pond and a few sitting arrangements, it multiplies the natural look of your landscape manifold. Place a few natural rocks as seats near the pond to get a ‘forest’ feel instead of constructing artificial chairs.

In addition to it, you can plant a few water lilies and lotus plants and add a few fishes as well. Blue lily is just amazing and a rare one too! You should use mud and a little dried cow dung for planting water plants. Once in a while you can take them out and give enough manure, if required. It you fix jet foundation and filter to increase oxygenation of your water body. It’s also possible to give rhythmic music and tunes to your fountain. It’s a good therapy to get relief from tension and pressure. 

Everyone is so much interested in constructing a new pond, fountain and giving new life to it. But only a few people maintain it properly. If not cleaned and maintained properly it can destroy the whole beauty of your garden. You should change water of the pond frequently, either partially or completely.

Fishes can be grown in ponds. It’s a pleasant sight to watch active fishes in ponds. It kills larvae of mosquitoes too. They eat a small percentage of algae also. Grow only a few items as you require. If you add more fishes it’s difficult to maintain too. You can grow a few types of algae in water bodies adding beauty and greenery to your water body. It protects fishes from direct exposure of sunlight too. Guppy, shark, gold fish, platy and carp can live long and hence they can be grown in your water ponds. Before leaving fishes directly to pond, place them in the plastic covers brought from aquarium for half an hour immersed in pond so that they can adjust with new environment and climate. It helps them to equalize the temperature. If you give excess food to fishes, they get deposited beneath the pond and make it impure easily. It’s sufficient to give them food once or twice a day.

Gardens where birds dwell

A beautiful garden with multicoloured flowers, a small fountain, lily pond and green lawn; if chirping of a few beautiful birds are also present, how will it look like? Nothing short of a paradise! It’s possible to make a few loving birds your companion also. You just need to provide them a nice shelter, a little food and water and loving heart to see them as pets or friends. You can feed them food grains. Though it takes a little time to make them friends, if you have enough time and patience, very soon you can see them waiting for your call! That’s the magical power of living beings in our nature.

Things to note while preparing food for them

You can provide them food in two ways. In a log at least 1 meter height, fix a wooden slab and place grains in its shade. Or you can provide holes at cage corners and pierce a string to hang food grains in it. Fix a bowl filled with water in a sheet or wood inside the cage. You can tie a few pieces of coconut too, in a string and hang them inside the cage. Love birds like leaves of Indian rock foil very much. They are medicinal plants good for their stomach too. You can give them one or two leaves everyday.

To prepare their nest/cage

Both methods are used for growing birds – cages and nests. Birds used to make nests in the hollows of wood. If old trees reduce the charm of your garden you can plant a few flowering climbers to those trees. It adds a natural look to your garden. Their dwelling place - pits, boxes or nests should be a little elevated from the ground level, at least 1 meter height. Let me give you a few suggestions if you use pits and boxes to grow birds.

• Once the eggs are hatched, you can keep the nest for the next year. But they should be cleaned well.
• You can make such boxes using plywood or soap covers. Water should never enter the boxes, but they should get enough air.
• They should be placed in such a way that they are warm, get enough sunlight, but never get over-exposed to it.
• You can give grey or light green colour to those boxes. You can make boxes of any shapes as you desire. But keep in mind, the bird species that you have chosen.
• Once eggs are hatched, never disturb the birds. Never try to take their babies too.
• You can closely examine the type of nests built by different species of birds so that you can make similar nests.

All images used for this article were taken from my own home garden.