The problem most beginner gardeners have, is keeping a pond clean and clear. If a garden pond is not taken care of properly, or not designed properly in the beginning, it can quickly become a dark, dank, smelly, ugly looking place that no one wants to go near.

When creating your own garden pond, one of your primary goals should be to create a balanced ecosystem that is as natural as possible. This way, the pond will continuously clean itself, and you won't have to do much of anything other than enjoy it.

One of the biggest causes of ponds going bad is excessive algae growth. When you create a backyard pond without putting enough plants and animals in place to keep everything balanced naturally, the algae will start growing out of control in your water. When this happens, the water will become murky and ugly looking, it will smell badly after awhile, and it will attract mosquitoes and other bugs which will be a big annoyance for you.

Helping to keep algae growth under control though, is a simple matter of making sure you have specific types of plants in your pond. Algae needs sun to thrive for instance, so one way to help keep it under control is to put water plants in your pond which float on the surface, and help block the sunlight to algae below. Water lilies are a good example of surface floating plants which help block the sunlight from encouraging algae growth.

Another thing you can do is put fish in your pond. Since the fish will eat the algae, it will help keep them from growing out of control. Algae feeds on decaying plant matter such as dropped leaves, so another way you can help control the growth is to clean debris from your pond regularly. Alternatively though, you can simply place plants in and around your pond which feed on the mineral salts produced by decaying matter, and this will essentially "starve" the algae so they're unable to grow and multiply.

After creating your pond and adding plants to it, be sure to put plants around the outside of the pond too. This will help create a larger ecosystem which can attract a variety of birds, frogs, squirrels and other wildlife which will help with pond pest control naturally, and thus help keep your pond clean and beautiful too.