THE WATER-GARDEN 265 



your pond with pains, and don't rest content with a 

 mere circle or oval, like the bed of some great pie or 

 pudding. Excavate, then, to four feet and a half at one 

 end — for I advise a kidney-shape, with many variants, as 

 the best general design for the pond — and at the lower 

 end have a lesser depth — say about three feet to three 

 feet and a half. For remember that this is not your 

 depth as you will have it, since the concrete bottom will 

 swallow up at least six inches if you wish to be quite safe 

 against any possible shiftings, frosts, and other disasters. 

 This, with a superimposed six inches of soil, will leave you, 

 at your deepest, three feet and a half of water at the 

 deeper end, and two and a half at the shallower. If you 

 delve any deeper, you may have too much water for some 

 of the frailer Nymphaeas ; if you spare trouble and make 

 your pond shallower, you run the risk, in hard winters, 

 of having the pond frozen solid, so that the cement, 

 unable to contain the expanded mass, cracks and bursts. 



You will add a notable advantage and beauty if you 

 give the pond a false wall. That is to say, make it a 

 solid tank of cement, with four sides and bottom, quite 

 simple. Then, in brick, build an inner wall, rising to 

 within an inch or so of water-level. If the narrow trench 

 thus formed — it need not be more than eight inches wide 

 — be filled with rich soil on a rubble base of two feet or 

 so, it will give you a most lovely ring of bog-plants round 

 your lake, being perpetually wet with the water that just 

 overtaps the false inner wall, and for ever percolates into 

 the soil. There is, of course, no need to have this all 

 round, if you do not want it, but one of the loveliest 

 pools I know sits high on a Surrey down, and owes half 

 its beauty to its complete girdle of Iris, Spiraea, and fen- 

 plants generally. 



Again, nothing looks better than to diversify your 

 bank here and there with some bold feature. Here and 



