Water Gardening and Hydroponics Gardening

What is the difference between Water Gardening and Hydroponics? Well, basically, water gardening involves the creation of ponds and water features, whereas Hydroponics, relates to the use of water rather than soil as a growing medium for your plants, (flowers and vegetables).

Water gardening can be quite an arduous task. When planned and carried out correctly however, water gardening is a hugely rewarding project, and one that will later provide hours of contented relaxation.

Planning is more important than ever here, however large or small your garden area is and if you already have a small lake, pond or stream in your garden, your water gardening efforts be made much easier. Unfortunately, for the vast majority of us, this is just not an option, so the majority of us will just have to build our water gardens from scratch.

The basics of water gardening usually involve building a pond and there are plenty of DIY books on the market these days to help with this. Your pond will need to be designed in a way that will fit within your garden confines, (not forgetting any budget confines). Once your design is ready, mark out the edges and start digging to the required depth, then line with pond liner and weight down with stones and plant pots, as required.

Remember that if you want your pond to house fish you’ll need to build this into your plan from the beginning to ensure that you provide a liveable habitat for them. Hardier fish that can survive winter are a must if you want them to live for some time. Koi, and Goldfish are the most popular varieties, but your local aquarium can provide you with more information. Also keep in mind that Koi tend to grow to about 2 feet in length when fully mature, so it’s desirable to leave them some swimming room for later on.

The other beauty of water gardening is the Lotus flower which is very popular and easy to grow. Indeed there are many varieties and shades in the Lotus family to help you to choose the right ones to match in with the rest of your garden. Don’t overfill your pond with lotus or other plants as you don’t want your water garden to look too cluttered, although you do need to provide shade for the fish as well as beauty for yourself.

So whilst your water gardening efforts may well require the use of many muscles you would prefer not to be reminded of with the digging and bending, we come to the idea of hydroponics gardening, which may well provide you with the opportunity for some relief from the back-ache. To find out how, read on:

Hydroponics gardening is based around two main systems, a drip system, and an ebb and flow system. The term hydroponics gardening is derived from the Greek words ‘hydro’ for water, and ‘ponics’ for labour, and hydroponics in gardening terms is the name given to a type of soil-free gardening that depends entirely on a water based system that is enriched with nutrients.

These nutrients can either be added in the form of specially formulated chemicals for hydroponics gardening, or they can come as a variety of natural nutritional ingredients found in nature itself. The use of either nutrient form is solely dependent upon you, the gardener.

Since hydroponics gardening is a soil free system, containers are the best methods for growing, and there are a number of different varieties of containers and pots available. The plants also need something to get their roots into, and for this, different gardeners have their own preferences. Shale is a simple and easy solution, especially for inexperienced hydroponics gardeners. If you undertake a little bit of research however, you may decide that Hydroton or Rockwool would be a better growing medium for you than shale would be. (For example, hydroton and shale can be used in an ebb and flow system, whilst horticultural Rockwool can be used with just about any system of passing the nutrient enriched water to the plants).

There are other options for the hydroponics gardener to choose from, but I will explain here only the two systems that I mentioned earlier. The ebb and flow system uses a pump to respectively flood and then drain your containers at regular intervals, whereas the drip system uses a continuous drip that supplies a steady ration of water solution that’s right for each plant.

It is also important to note here that hydroponics gardens have a higher growth rate, and many gardeners take advantage of this factor to create high yield vegetable and fruit gardens.

Now that you’ve been introduced to the concept of hydroponics gardening, who knows, with a little more research you may decide to set up your own hydroponics system and keep yourself year round in fresh fruits and vegetables! Just imagine, no mud, less bending, perhaps even more fun!

(taken from : here)