Designing a swimming pool so it looks good in your garden and gives you real joy requires a lot of thought. The earlier in the process you consider the issues below, the more successful your pool project will be and the more you will enjoy both your house and your garden.
Views
If your pool is close to the house, remember that the pool will be covered for most of the year. There is no sweet talking this- pool covers are just a massive expanse of ugly plastic, so it’s very important to consider where you place mitigating features, especially planting.
A substantial raised bed or evergreen planting between the house and the pool provides screening and a pleasant outlook from the house. It also looks good from the pool area- it’s nice to feel like you’re in a special place, protected, and away from it all.
Draw up a section to scale to work out the height of the planting required, which will depend on how close the planting and the pool are to the house. Actually- have someone draw this up for you who knows what they’re doing, as there are many pitfalls you want to avoid if you fork out for a pool! I’m often called in way too late in the project, so all I can do then is damage control. I’ve seen so many wasted opportunities to make pool areas great that would often even have saved money, and that hurts me to see. And clients feel like kicking themselves when I point this out (which I should stop doing but I can’t help myself)…

Pool covers and equipment
Invest in a recessed pool cover to avoid handling and looking at a big plastic tarp sausage every time you want to go swimming
- Pool pumps, equipment, and storage: Make sure you have a big enough pump room or cupboard, which also provides room for chemicals and cleaning supplies. Speak to your contractor early on about the location for ground source heat pumps, as the location options for the big fan units are restricted and you don’t want to find yourself looking at one from the kitchen window or your lovely new pool or deck. Just like the pump room, place strategically and screen with planting.
- Consider a natural swimming pond, which doesn’t need a cover because natural pools are not heated. This saves the cost of the cover and heating and allows your pool to double up as an ornamental body of water, which looks great at all times of the year.Part of this set up are regeneration zones planted with plants that purify the water. There is pumping and filtration equipment that is needed but the shallow margins heat up the water circulating through them, so the pool gets to a comfortable temperature surprisingly quickly once the temperatures increase and the sun comes out. We see ever more people use the pool in winter also. Apparently, cold plunges build immunity and strengthen willpower. And the wildlife that comes with the pool is varied and fascinating, so there’s another thing to feel virtuous about!
Natural pond with jetty
Pool surrounds and materials
You will have to choose several materials when designing your pool: The inside surface of your basin, the coping around the pool edge, and the adjoining hard standing. Your budget will be a major factor but try to keep an edited palette and carry through some of the materials and colours used in rest of the garden and the house. This will create a cohesive scheme, which goes a long way for a designed look.
- Pool surround: If you do need several areas around the pool for entertaining, consider breaking up large expanses of the same material, for example, mix large extents of paving with sections of decking. This works especially well if you have changes in levels.
- Internal pool finish: Choose the colour of your pool finish wisely, you’ll live with that blue or turquoise for a long time. How brilliant or how subtle that colour should be is what you must consider in relation to the style and palette of the garden. Remember, a finish sample looks different under several feet of water. Options in ascending order of cost are a pool liner, a plaster finish, small tiles, mosaics, large tiles. Of course, there is a range within each of these categories.
- Coping: Copings should have eased or rounded (‘bullnosed’) edges to make pulling yourself out of the pool comfortable. Unless there is a good reason to frame the pool in a different material and colour form the surrounding surfaces, stick with a matching coping design for a classy look.
- Drain design: Remember that surface water needs to be diverted from the pool, so there will be drains either between the coping and the paving, or the paving needs to fall away from the pool on four sides. Make sure your drainage channels are as inconspicuous as possible, such as slim drains (‘brick slot’ drains), or that you use removable pieces of paving that have been laser cut with slots to sit above the drain in order to blend in for a luxurious finish.

Plants for pool areas
- Evergreens and grasses are the least messy (although there is always some maintenance)
- Avoid shrubs with berries or prune after flowering to stop them developing
- Avoid plants that shed sharp seed heads
- Try not to attract wasps into the pool area, e.g. avoid fig trees, and control aphids on your other plants because aphid residue attracts wasps
What is the best shape for a pool?
The most straight forward and cheapest (relatively, only, of course) is the rectangular pool
- If you want a retractable cover, make sure that your steps are placed within the confines of a rectangle
- We’ve seen an increasing popularity in counter current pools, which are much more compact than regular pools and can be a great solution for both exercise and fun in smaller gardens.
- Natural swimming pools usually have a rectangular swimming zone, while the verges and regeneration zones can be shaped organically and can be adjusted to the terrain.
Reduce paving and increase planting around your pool
How can you make your pool area special?
Please, please, please avoid the boring default 4m or so frame of paving all around your pool! Be creative and use only as much paving as you need and add planting between different areas to subtly zone them.
- Add generous planting around your pool area, whether in the ground or in large planters- be bold! Some well clipped evergreen clear stem or multi stem trees add structure.
- Remember to soften the view of the pool from the house so you don’t have to look at the pool cover.
- Create intimate niches bordering the pool where you can place your sun beds and other spaces for dining and lounging.
- Add fragrant plants close to seating or lounging areas.
- If your pool area is very sunny, add a pergola, traditional or modern, depending on the style of your garden and adjacent house. A vine covered pergola is magical as a lunch spot or for lounging, and it softens what is traditionally an area with lots of hard surfaces. Parasol shaped trees can make beautiful natural ‘pergola’.
- If you fence in your pool area, don’t make the enclosure an afterthought- make it a feature. Plant a hedge or make it a beautifully crafted wall and pay attention to the gate design- these details make a huge difference.
- Lighting: even a couple of lights inside a pool make the body of water glow like magic. For the surrounding area, highlight some structural elements such as specimen trees or pergolas. If some of these are close enough to the pool and you don’t have lights in the pool (or they’re off), you can capture the illuminated feature’s reflection in the pool. Check the angles of reflection from the area you’re most likely to view this, such as from your patio doors. Festoon lighting is cheap and cheerful and looks great draped along fences or over pergolas but it’s not a replacement for at least a basic lighting scheme.
- Great for entertaining, a lounge area with a fireplace or an outdoor bar will make you spend a lot more time by the pool, even if you’re not going swimming.

What impacts the cost of a pool?
- Partially above-ground pools are more economical than inground pools as they involve less excavation and spoils removal. This also goes for pools built into a slope where only one part of the pool is recessed into the ground, although this does depend on the terrain that needs to be retained and drainage.
- Prefabricated pool shells that can get you from lawn to pool within a few days are the most predictable and the least headache. They can be good value and energy efficient to run.
- If it’s a bespoke pool, rectangular is the most economical size, and the closer to a square you are, the fewer linear metres of wall you need to build and line, which impacts cost. Pool depth impacts the price as well.
- If you have a large enough property to accommodate the excavated spoils, this will save the cost of removal, although this needs to be planned and landscaped with foresight.
- If you can create a fall in the pool surround towards in-ground planting areas or other permeable ground such as gravel or an adjacent deck then you can save on the cost of surface drainage.
- Recessed covers aren’t cheap but please, and I know I’m repeating myself, don’t get tempted to consider an exposed one- they’re all ugly, they look cheap and ruin any design.
- Pools with liners are the most economical, pools tiled with large format tiles are the most expensive.
A pool is probably the biggest investment into your property after the cost of the house, and it can transform your house and garden if done right, so take the time and plan it well.