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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
Ramble on H50 'cos I'm loving this thread with all the inspiration & useful information you give us & your great pics too!
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
Hi Wendy, welcome to the madness!!
So a quick update from another sunny day here in North Somerset that was spent out in the garden on the wildlife pond project.
I have to say that I'm a little disappointed today as I haven't achieved as much as I had planned. I had planned to design and build a bridge to give access to the now cut off seating pod and also get the over-flow finished but time didn't permit and I only got the bridge done, apart from one piece of wood as I ran out of posts!!
Any way here are a few pictures of todays efforts...
Firstly I dug some footings and concreted in place two cross woods on either side of the pond. This was done to raise the planks (posts) off of the ground and away from the water surface and give support to the planks. As I always use untreated wood around ponds this ensures that you get the best life span as possible out of them as they would rot very quickly if in permanent contact with the wet ground....
It's just a matter of ensuring that everything is level and then basically drilling and screwing all the pieces of wood together. By the way all the wood is reclaimed!
Then hopefully it should look something like this (minus one cross beam!!)....
Well that's about it for today, I will need to buy a length of post to finish it off but it's in place, level and secure!
I think that the landscaping and finishing off around the edge of the pond although not seeming too difficult will take some time. It's back to work tomorrow but I do feel that I've had a pretty productive weekend and I've enjoyed it!!
Looking good after all your effort H!!
Heavens above Higgy, there is no end to your wonderful talents lol it looks amazing and I love the bridge idea to get across to the seating area. I can already picture it with all the planting done, its going to be awesome. Well done, you deserve a soak in a hot soothing bath with a glass of beer or wine by your side !! Which day of the week do you take off for a rest ? lol !!!
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Regards, Hazel
Thanks Wendy & Hazy,
And I have actually just got out of the bath but unfortunately I drank my last can of beer after yesterdays efforts! :-)
Now which day do I take off? ummmmm?....
I can't think about taking time off as I'm currently thinking about how much time I can squeeze in after work tomorrow!!! LOL :-)
My treat last night was to watch the rugby (England v Italy) which I thoroughly enjoyed and I've managed to avoid the Ireland v France score so we will be watching that tonight after the Higlet has gone to bed!! Now surely that's enough time to rest isn't it??...
lol Higgy, I've got to say with progress like you've made I'm not surprise you are already planning for tomorrow ! its all coming together brilliantly, not to mention quickly so you'll need another beer ready and another soak in a bath tomorrow lol We watched the England rugby match too, its a must in this house as I'm married to an ex-Hooker LOL
Oh that's interesting, Professional Hooker?
I do love my rugby but playing wise it was always football and tennis for me and I suppose that's what messed up my hips and back, probably a good job I didn't play too much rugby!! LOL
You'd likely have ended up with Cauliflower ears instead of just growing them in the garden, as well as a 'squash'ed nose!!! Lol
Morning Higgy and Wendy,
@ Higgy, no he didn't reach the dizzy heights of professional rugby but played Union for his local side (Salians) who were in Sale, Cheshire - not the Sale side. He did play in Cheshire Cup final against Sale but Salians lost ! In today's world Mike would be considered too short to even play Hooker role as all the blokes seem to be 5' 10" or taller and he's less than 5'8" I'm glad he didn't play 2nd row forward so he's still got lovely ears !!
Its the rugby playing that eventually took its toll on his knee and he had knee replacement whilst we were out in Australia 6 years ago so he can now hop like a kangaroo lol
Last summer whilst we were eating in Loch Fyne restaurant in our local town we saw this chap at the next table with his young son. Mike knew this chap was a famous rugby player but just couldn't think of his name ...... so on the way out I sneeked quietly past and asked him !! he was absolutely charming, very friendly and turned out to be the Ex-England hooker Phil Greening who now works for RFU in coaching roles around the world and as a pundit recently for Sky during the World Sevens. We chatted with him for a few minutes and he was so interesting we could have listened to him all day.
Oh that's a brilliant story Hazy, rugby players do generally seem to be fairly 'normal' despite their fame and certainly in comparison to footballers from my observations!?
My ears are still as the should be Wendy, I'm not a great fan of Cauliflower so I don't grow them either I'm afraid!! LOL
What a day I have had today though and following that lovely weekend!!... I got up at 5am only to find that my car had a completely flat battery and no amount of charging or jumping was going to get it going!!
Luckily my wife wasn't working so I used her car to go an get a new one, unfortunately not as simple as first sounds! Typically my car has a 'special type' of battery apparently that wasn't stocked by the first three outlets I tried. Long story short is that I ended up having to drive 30miles to get one and on top of this it cost £90!!! Ouch!! By the time I'd messed around with this it was lunch time and I had no choice but to take a leave day from work!!...
As I had an impromptu day off I did a bit more work on the pond this afternoon and managed to start landscaping the edges and creating planting beds for my marginal plants. I did this by positioning some nice large racks on the shelf around the top of the pond and then back filling with the clay subsoil that I dug out and lots of shingle. This combination should give a really nice planting medium for my marginals when they arrive and will hopefully blend the edge of the pond into the wild-flower area whilst also hiding the liner.
Although not finished it starts to give you the idea of how it should hopefully look once completed...
When looking at these pictures keep in mind that the water level still has about another two inches to go up yet so that water should lap against the mud bank. This will give the plants about an inch of water above the soil in the planting pockets which are nice and deep and filled with clay and shingle ( I hope that makes sense?)...