 |
 |
 |
 |
Personal summer cottage
The image of a summer cottage has recently changed a lot. The abundance of beds and hotbeds is already considered unfashionable (yes, fashion has already reached here), even bad manners. But now it is very important to engage in the design of the site.
How to make a paradise out of six hundred square meters with green silk lawns, luxurious, as in the pictures, flower beds, hedges, gazebos, corners of relaxation and solitude, and other delights of country life? We will try to tell about all this in our next issues.
And let's start with the last peep of modern summer cottage fashion - with a reservoir in its own area.
Even an inveterate country workaholic sometimes wants to break away from his favorite garden or planer and just relax with the help of doing nothing.
Psychologists have long noticed the amazing relaxation properties of water, which relieves stress, fatigue, sets in a peaceful mood, etc., etc.
Moreover, such an effect is exerted not only by the water procedure, but also by directly contemplating the water surface (how can one not recall the wise Japanese or their own peaceful spouse fishing).
So a pond in its own area is more than reasonable.
This, as we have already said, is relaxation and rest, it is an aesthetic pleasure (especially if you design according to all the rules), it is a pleasant coolness on a hot day, it is, after all, a pleasure for your children who (regardless of age) love water in any kind.
Before grabbing a shovel and garden hose, decide what you really want, a pool, a pond, or a fountain.
In no case should you succumb to gigantomania and try to create some kind of symbiosis of Lake Victoria with the Olympic pool.
In order to refresh and decorate the site, a small pond is enough.
How it all will look depends on your imagination, desires and time.
You can make an ordinary small pond surrounded by stones and plants, in which, for example, water lilies and lilies will swim.
But why not make something more original?
If you put a pump in the pond, you get a fountain.
Just don’t make it with the help of your neighbor Uncle Vasya, it’s better to buy it ready, otherwise your charming fountain can suddenly start to shock you one day.
You can still arrange two small ponds on the same level with a small fountain in the middle. True, one cannot do without an electric pump, and it is also necessary to provide a place for drainage of excess water with its subsequent use, for example, for irrigation of a garden.
You can also make a pond with a rock garden (a stone slide) - to use water, use a low-power pump that will take a little water from the pool and direct it to the highest point in the rock garden, from where it will elegantly flow back.
Around the pond it would be nice to provide a garden.
You can also plant trees nearby - willow, for example, or fragrant lilacs.
And plant flower crops closer: undersized - at the very edge, higher - away. Forget-me-nots go well with the yellow trollius, the marsh cherubnitsa, the frangipani, the marsh iris, the fern.
The French today recommend placoon grass - it creates a dense wall about a meter high, it blooms from June to September with purple-pink panicles.
Flowers need to be planted in peat pots, they are deepened into the ground a few centimeters below the water level.
It is clear that where the roots of the plants do not come in contact with water, they must be watered regularly.
I immediately want a statue to the pond.
If a marble nymph with a jug from the nearest antique store doesn’t suit you for aesthetic reasons, find a pine root in the nearest forest, polish it, cover it with a water-repellent and antifungal mixture, draw eyes and a smile - you get a smooth Slavic water.
And no one will blame you for the lack of taste.
A small bench, preferably plastic, will complement your landscape with water and willows.
If a gutter is provided in the reservoir for the drainage of water, fish can be launched there.
Best of all in garden ponds do not take root mirror, but gold carps or goldfish. But even snails and tadpoles also look good.
Since there should be a rather high oxygen content in the reservoir with fish and other animals, it is worth planting plants in heavier pots — a villain, decorative water lilies, and Canadian pond algae.
Water hyacinths and duckweed are generally unpretentious - they live on the surface of the water, and then they take root.
True, such a populated pond requires periodic replacement of water.
It can be scooped out with a bucket or pumped out by an electric pump.
Remember: the water must circulate, otherwise it will bloom.
A variety of chemicals for water purification are good where we are not: Turkish products are suitable for Turkey, and American products are suitable for the USA. Ecology is different everywhere, which means that living creatures (including our skin) react differently.
Now that you already sleep and see all this beauty in your own country house, you can proceed to the most crucial part of the grandiose water project - the direct construction of the reservoir itself.
One of the easiest ways to do this is to dig a pit about a meter deep, clean the bottom with a shovel and moisten it with water - the soil should be soaked with water and soak to a depth of 10-15 centimeters.
The dried bottom will have to be well compacted, compacting the surface layer, then drive pebbles or gravel into it to a depth of 10 centimeters.
(The best option for the pool is clay soil, but sandy soil requires a mandatory waterproof layer of polyethylene or roofing material.)
Then you can testify - lay out the edges of the pool with what is lying around on the site, prevents everyone from living and at the same time can not rot or melt.
It can be cobblestones, paving slabs, curbs, the remains of the old foundation ...
If there is no desire to mess around, but there is some money, you can, of course, be tempted to advertise prefabricated fixed pools.
But practice shows: after a couple of assemblies-disassemblies, you need to buy a new one.
In addition, the surface under such a pool should be perfectly flat, best concrete.
There will still be a lot of trouble with such a coating, so it’s easier to gather strength once and build a reusable pond.
In general, whatever type of pond you choose, this beauty will require you to sacrifice only once - when you install a pond.
And then she brings one sheer pleasure.
