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| More Pool Designs |
Nature does the rest, sometimes with a little help in the beginning.
In time, the pond fills with rain water. The nest of straw serves as insulation, so that the clay shell and the water in it remain somewhat
cooler at all times than the surrounding air. Dew condenses nightly on
the cool clay banks, runs down into the little pond, and replaces moisture lost by seepage and evaporation.
An amateur should not attempt to build a dew pond, because few
of them work out. As only the very hardiest of aquatic growths can be
coaxed to live in one, even if it does turn out satisfactorily, the water
gardener receives little reward for his labors.
Puddling with Concrete
The one good word I have for the technique called puddling is that
it is as good with concrete as it is bad with clay. It works out so well,
in fact, that nearly half the pools being built in the country today are
being puddled with concrete.
The one possible disadvantage of a puddled pool is that it may not
have the permanent, indestructible strength of a sunken, straight-sided,
reinforced concrete structure which has been poured into wooden
forms. Handled correctly, nevertheless, puddled concrete will be strong
enough to serve for many years with little or no repair work. In other comparisons, the puddled pool comes out way ahead. It is
cheaper because it takes less concrete. It is less work because it requires
only a narrow, extremely simple form for the concrete. Most important
of all, it enables a water gardener to dig his pool in exactly the shape
he wants it, whether geometrical or in free form.
Puddling a Concrete Pool
You can make a puddled concrete pool (see Drawing 15) in much
the same way as a pool poured into forms. There are just fewer steps
to the job.
Use the same guides (given in Chapter l) as to how big to make your
pool and where to put it. The shape, particularly if it is irregular, will
take a bit of pondering. Outline some trial shapes with the garden hose
or a clothesline, as in Drawing 16, and think about them a few days
before you start to work. Once you have decided on the shape, move around the outside of
the outline you have formed, driving stout stakes into the ground every
30 inches. Space them a bit closer along the sharper curves of the out-
line.
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