A Koi garden provides a beautiful mixture of water, plant life, and Koi fish.
There are a few items to think about as you design and build your Koi garden.
One of the first things you should consider when planning your Koi garden is the depth and size of your Koi pond.
The water depth should be at least four feet to help protect them from natural predators, such as raccoons and birds of prey.
Koi can grow to several feet long which means they will need significant space to move around.
A thriving and healthy koi pond has at least 1,000 gallons of water in it.
Just remember that if you can only accommodate a smaller pond than you should limit the amount of fish that you have in there.
Once you have determined the correct size of your pond, the next step would be to locate an appropriate location.
An area that is out of direct sunlight is needed because the Koi prefer cooler water.
Ideally, a location that provides shade from a tree would be perfect for maintaining the water temperature as long as you do not mind skimming the pond to for fallen tree debris.
Also, being under a tree will help protect the Koi from being taken by birds of prey.
Generally speaking plants do not co-exist well with Koi, because Koi are very opportunistic eaters.
The Koi will "dig" into potted underwater plants which will cause a big mess of plant debris and soil, plus they will eat the plants.
It is possible to integrate plants into your pond, some solutions that have worked for other koi owners are placing netting over the plants and/or weighing the pots down with river rocks.
Using floating plants, like water lilies, is another option for integrating plant life.
Water lilies come in several different varieties.
You just need to determine which ones will do the best in your pond based on its water depth.
Water lilies will not put oxygen into the pond water but they will provide some nice shady areas for your Koi to hang out and relax.