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Hello All,
I hope that you all had a good Christmas and New Year? I'm back to work tomorrow following two weeks off so a bit depressed tonight!
Whilst we have been having this terrible weather I simply haven't been unable to get out in the garden as it is completely water logged! This has however given me the opportunity to think about what I need to add to the garden in 2014 for my beloved wildlife.
Following a lot of head scratching (partly due to Nits that my daughter brought home from infant school YUKK!) I decided that although we have several small bodies of water and water features and of course the (fish only) large Koi pond, I need to include a larger body of water dedicated to wildlife and native planting.
Having just viewed Hazy's impressive pond build I'm not sure how interesting mine will be as it will be on a small budget and completed by me on my Todd with dodgy hips and back!! LOL
Any way my decision to dig up the family lawn was met with a resounding "NO!" from Mrs H so I had to think of another plan to include a bigger pond without losing anything else from the garden. This actually proved quite difficult as the garden is now well developed and planted but fit this in I must!!
So donning wellies and with Choco at my side we squelched out to see how we could fit this impossible plan into my already crowded garden. After much deliberation and more head scratching (damn Nit shampoo doesn't work good job I haven't got much hair!!!) it was decided that I would have to lose about half of my wildflower area! Now this isn't an ideal solution but I've estimated that I can regain the same area if not more by planting wild flower strips in other parts of the garden (Don't tell Mrs H!!)
To try and explain the complete and utter jumble that is in now spinning around inside my head here's a few pictures and sketches of what I'm planning and what I hope will give you a better idea of what I'm trying to achieve!....
1. So firstly this picture shows you where in the garden the pond will be. As you look at it the right hand side of the wild flower area will be similar to the size and shape of the proposed pond. This is however a very old picture and the dry gravel river bed extends right across the garden now. The wild flower area oh the left will remain but here it is only partly de-turfed and is a little bigger now. (This area is in the bottom third of the whole plot)
2. Now you can see where it sits within the garden this picture gives a little better representation of the shape and size of the pond (right) and remaining wild flower area (left)
3. So what does the inside of my head look like?
Well I tend to get an idea and be able to see how it will look almost straight away, I then play around with it in my mind until it looks about right before going outside, getting stuck in and just letting it evolve! However for this purpose I have attempted to draw what is inside my head and what I envisage this to look like!
It's not very often that I put my thoughts down on paper so please do forgive my terrible drawing and obviously it's not all to scale but a fairly accurate representation of the idea I think....
(click on picture to enlarge)
I hope that this scribbled plan makes sense? Basically you can see the edition of the new pond is quite substantial but I feel fits quite nicely into this area with the wild flowers and then the wildlife area behind. You can see that the loss of wild flower planting is made up by further planting of wild flowers around the swing, the fronts and one side of the raised veg beds, along the raised bank in the wildlife area and the addition of more flowers along the bank of the dry gravel river bed. The two areas alongside the pond and next to the seating pod will be planted with extra tall pollinating perennials such as Purple Loosestrife and other native perennials that are good pollinating plants. The secret seating pod will actually be cut off from the rest of the garden and will become only accessible by a small bridge adding to it's secrecy and privacy.
One of the biggest problems with siting the pond here will be getting it to sit naturally into the rest of the garden. A big problem with this spot is that the lowest point of the garden is actually the dry gravel river bed feature and would normally be where the water sits in a natural landscape. This ditch is in fact an old drainage ditch (Known locally as a gripe) When this land was a field the water would naturally sit in the gripes so that the cattle could stand on higher and drier land! This ditch still floods if we get a lot of rain and there is a drainage pipe buried underneath meaning that I can't excavate it or include it in the pond!
To overcome this problem and to make sure that there is a logical relationship between the pond and the ditch I have decided to build an old stone 'damning' wall complete with old rusty iron sluice gate! This will give a natural partnership between the two features and a logical explanation to the pond being on slightly higher ground.
So again attempting to demonstrate what is in my head here's another scribble of what this feature should look like.....
As you can see the wall will be given an 'old' look with planting pockets built in for some native plants that you may find in old stone walls. This will be a feature not a working damn or sluice ( I ain't that good!! LOL) but I'm hoping that it will look OK once overgrown and weathered in.
Again to give you a visual representation of my plans, I hope that this feature will in time look how the 'old stone bridge' feature that I built at the other end of the dry gravel river bed a couple of years ago looks now (over grown and natural)...
Well that's my plans for 2014 and what is currently floating around in my mess of a head! I have posted this up as it will be a long process for me due to my current disabilities and I think quite a challenge. I'm hoping that by having it here it will give me the motivation to get it done and I do hope a few of you will find this an interesting project to follow as it evolves?
It will take quite some time to do and in the first instance a while before the garden is in a dry enough condition for me to start! I will try and post up what I'm doing even if just trying to 'blag' materials (remember I have very little budget for this!!!) to try and keep the interest going.
Let me know if you have any thoughts or ideas that might help me or enhance this project or just anything that I may have missed?...
Best
Higgy
You're doing better than us Higgy, it looks as if your pond project is going at a vast rate of knots !
We spent the morning at the garden centre getting some compost, top soil, bonemeal and root grow and spent the afternoon shifting shrubs around and making space for the Rowan trees. I checked online to see the best way to go about planting the new trees and Ashridge even had a video clip on their website which was a good help, so with Mike's help we dug, pulled up roots, moved two poor looking apple/plum trees and half a dozen shrubs, sifted out a few rocks and a brick from the sub-soil and only got two of the Rowans planted in the whole afternoon !! It took 2 hours for each tree but at least they are in good positions, have space around them (of sorts ! ) and have all the goodness in the compost to help them bed in. So, we have the other two to plant tomorrow, just hope there is not so much juggling with shrubs for these ! Even with our large garden we have difficulty finding space for things, its a case of thinning out weedy shrubs or trees and replacing with more robust ones. A garden is like an ongoing lifetime project lol
Good luck with your next gardening session, its looking really great with the shelf in place for marginal plants, you've almost finished Higgy !! lol Wait till the planting goes in and the water ..........its so exciting watching it take shape and progress at such a fast rate. You must be exhausted lol
_____________________________________
Regards, Hazel
Ouch! That sounds like a lot of hard work Hazy!
Once they are all in and growing those trees will look stunning and provide a bumper crop of berries for winter birds, lets hope you get some winter thrushes and waxwings in next winter!?
Not much to report from here at the moment as I'm waiting for the liner to be delivered at the moment.
I have to confess that I probably did too much too quickly as the last two days I've been in agony! I walked the dog last night and had a seizure in my back and didn't think I was going to get home!! LOL
The underlay has been delivered and even some planting baskets but the are redundant until I get the liner in!!
The worrying bit is I'm not actually sure how on earth I'm going to get the liner in place when it doe come as from experience they are heavy a tricky to move into place and then was when I was 100% fit and healthy! Sounds like a recipe for a few more aches and pains doesn't it! LOL
Speak soon
Oh dear Higgy, sry you are suffering from all those exertions, as you say, you did do an awful lot of work in a short time so no wonder you are aching :( I think you will need at least one extra pair of hands when it comes to laying the pond liner as it is terribly difficult to manoeuver into place, we had three guys here. The liner weighs a ton (if you have the thick heavy duty liner). We had some pond liner left over and Mike used it to cover the shed roof with to keep out any leaks, he had a right struggle trying to get it to move as it tends to stick being rubber ! I couldn't assist him due to the tennis elbow problem as that task was one which would have caused further damage pulling and tugging so Mike had to take his time until he managed it. Don't try to do it on your own Higgy or you will injure yourself further, as they say, many hands make light work so enlist the help of friends or family if you can. These guys had a sand base layer first, the underlay, then pond liner and finally the sea pebbles so it was a job and a half and no wonder it took 3 months !!! Hope the liner arrives soon but do be careful Higgy as it is really is very heavy to move into place. Pity we are not around the corner as I would volunteer Mike to assist you lol Good luck, keep me updated when you get chance :)
post edit: forgot to say we got the other two trees in yesterday and they are really well planted with all the necessary so should do well. Strangely, I find the digging was not too bad on the last tree as there were no stones to move and the soil was fairly soft. Only took me 15 mins to dig a deep hole lol and my elbow was fine (although I do wear a support on it when working) . The trees should look fantastic come autumn time ..... as long as I can stop the Squirrels jumping all over them lol.
Ha ha, that's funny you mentioning Mike using the pond-liner to line the roof of the shed as I did that very thing myself last year on my shed! I figured that I might as well use the off cuts and with a 40yr guarantee on it I should get 10-15yrs on the roof of the shed I reckon!!
Glad you got the trees in, post up a picture if you get a chance, it will keep the thread going until the pond-liner arrives!
Yipppeeee! A quick post to say that the liner and underlay are here so if I can summons up enough energy we should be all systems go today I hope!
I have to cut down the wildflower stems next to the site first as I don't want bits of twig and stuff in the water once we get to that stage. This will enable more planting and sowing of wildflowers around the pond also.
Hopefully update you all later.
Hi Higgy, so glad to hear your pond liner arrived and that the weather is fine for your next session of pond construction.... don't forget to take your tea breaks lol
As requested I have sorted out some photos of the Rowan trees and where we planted them and a few pics to give you a better idea of or garden area but with so many photos I didn't want to detract away from your wonderful thread here so I have posted them on a separate thread. CLICK HERE
Good luck with todays work in the garden, can't wait for the next update :)
Well what can I say, what a fabulous day I have had! Eight hours of gardening in the warm weather, just what the doctor ordered although I might need a doctor tomorrow after that!! LOL
Anyway I think the best way to show you what I've been up to and how far I got is to simply post up some pictures...
1. Before I started (you can see that Choco wants to help!!)
2. First job was to chop down all of this...
3. Then cleaned out excavation and laid a layer of sand....
4. Then in went two layers of good quality underlay....
5. Then the liner and it was great to have a sunny day as they are so more pliable when hot from the sun...
6. Start filling it with water and neatly fold down the creases as you go....
7, 8 & 9. Edges roughly trimmed and how it looks now....
8.
9.
So there you have it 8hrs of hard graft and it is now starting to look like a pond at last! I just need to work out what I'm doing with the edges and sort out the drain on the wall at the end so that I can start planting it and the surrounding area with wild flowers!
I will have to see how I feel tomorrow prior to committing to doing more but I'm hopeful that I'll get a few hours on it in the morning!
Wow Higgy, that's fantastic progress today and its looking brilliant ! can't believe you got all that done in 8 hours, very well done indeed. Its really looking lovely and thats before all the plants go in, you better go put your feet up and rest those aching muscles lol thanks for todays update, loving this thread :)
Hi Higgy. Just catching up with this great thread of yours. You have made some remarkable progress given the timescale and generally atrocious weather conditions. The dam wall idea is fantastic and more understandable to me now that I see the photos of it all coming together. How level was the ground to begin with as it's quite difficult to tell from the photos? I'm assuming that you took the overflow height as the basis of the level of all the pegs you put in to ensure that the water level was where you wanted it to be, unless of course the opposite end of the pond is at a higher level in which case you would have to have built the sluice feature to a specific height to reflect this...if that makes any sense to you..? How much lower is the maximum water level in relation to the level of the ground immediately surrounding the pond? On page 2 of the thread you also talked about a drain under the pond to take away any excess water to the dry river bed feature, but I must confess that the concept behind this still eludes me somewhat,(in spite of your explanatory diagram and description). I look forward to further updates Higgy, as I know that the information you are providing here is going to be of great use to me when I get round to building my own pond. I'm particularly interested as to which types of plants you are going to put in to sort out water clarity and oxygen levels. I watched a thing on YouTube about a pond being built (albeit a large pond),and the guy put a hibernaculum next to the pond for the benefit of wildlife. I have to say I really liked the idea of this. Do you have any plans for a similar type of thing? Moving away from ponds for the moment and onto the subject of bees, which I see you and Hazy have been talking about. You will probably know the name of the plant if I describe it to you, it's the blue thistle that is used as a buttonhole at weddings(in Scotland anyway). I bought one last year and put it in the garden (even though the guy in the garden centre said that they can run a bit wild if left unchecked). I was quite astounded at the number of bees that crawled all over this plant later on in the year. We counted around 16 bees on it at one time and they seemed to settle on it overnight as well. Just thought that I'd mention this. Anyway Higgy, very well done on the build so far and please take it easy on yourself. Really great stuff. If you fancy an enjoyable hour or so watching the guy on YouTube building the pond, it can be found here.
Best wishes
Paul
My bird photos HERE
Hi Hazy,
Strangely I'm not feeling too bad this evening although I might seize up by the morning, we will have to wait and see.
Hello Paul,
Thank you for the kind comments they are appreciated. I think that you have answered some of your questions yourself!...
The ground was higher at one end and I put the pegs in all around the pond so that I had the same level to work from. The 'dam' wall was built so that the water would sit behind it but overflow over the gap when it got too full. I haven't quite finished this as I need to cement if the stone to make this the right height and then a capping stone on top to hide the liner. This is the reason why the water isn't right at the top yet, to allow for these slight adjustments on the out-let. When full to the brim the water level should be level with the surrounding ground. The lower ground was made to the right height by banking up some of the soil that was dug out. As the soil here is heavy clay this worked fine and could be carved into the desired shape etc. (I hope that makes sense?)
I won't make a hibernaculum right next to the pond as I have lots of areas near by that fulfill this requirement such as log piles, stone piles and lots of banked up soil. I always think that you need several areas that give shelter dotted throughout the garden. I also have hedgehog houses buried under the hedges and other smaller pockets of water so plenty of places for all manner of creatures to hide.
Don't worry about the drain idea under the pond I didn't go with it in the end as the dry river bed should act as a drain as it is lower than the pond.
The blue thistle that you talk about is I suspect Sea Holly - Eryngium maritimum?
It is good for pollinators as are many thistles. A word of warning though leave the stems in the garden for as long as you can as I had to cut down a thistle today whilst clearing ready for the above work and the hollow stems were full of ladybirds! If I have to cut stuff down this early I always pile it up under my Hawthorn hedge so that the insects can continue to hibernate but will still benefit my garden when they finally emerge.
Two of my best plants for bees are Veronicastrum and Knapweed so try these this year if you have space.
Apologies I've rambled on a bit!