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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
Sorry to hear of the car trouble, by coincidence we had to take our VW Estate in as it had problems with the automatic handbrake sticking and the local garage were amazing, they plugged it into the diagnositics, said it was probably on the battery that needing charging properly and charged just £21 including use of courtesy car !! Never thought charges so cheap happened in this day and age but it restores your faith in mechanics lol Our VW dealer wanted £60 to just get a read out from the diagnostic machine before they did anything. Goes to show .........shop around ! Now back to your project Higgy..... glad you were able to get something more done to the pond area and it does look, amazing how it is taking shape and thats before the rest of the plants go in, what a wonderful feature it will be Higgy, I'm looking forward to next update with interest lol, very well done.
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Regards, Hazel
Hi Higgy
I've been following your project with interest, you have put a lot of work into the area and it is showing. You will be amazed at how quickly the wildlife moves in. I had newts, diving beetles, whirly gigs and pond skaters in/on mine before it was even fully filled let alone planted.
Are the rocks you are using limestone? It is difficult to tell from photos. I ask because I made the fatal mistake of using limestone when I first put my pond in. The limestone slowly dissolves causing the water to turn green. There is no cure except to take the rocks out and replace them. This is an easy job now but not so easy once it is all planted up. It sounds horrible that my only post in years is a negative one but I would hate to see you put all that work in and then end up with green soup.
On a more positive note, we now have regular visits from a Kingfisher.
Build it and they will come.
Brilliant thread and what a fantastic project!
www.andrewa.zenfolio.com
Wildlife Friendly - No the rocks aren't Limestone although I'm not so sure that they are as bad as you say as lime stone is often used in Koi ponds to balance PH. I know that in the US many of their 'large' Koi ponds are built completely from Limestone and it is one of their main building materials of choice over there?
All ponds go green just after being built and it is commonly known as 'new pond syndrome' I would be interested to know how soon after your pond was built that it went green and how much sun etc it gets?
Generally once the plants get established and an amount of water surface is shaded by lilies etc the water will clear itself and the 'pea soup' look goes as it balances itself out.
I'm no expert but it is a really interesting point and it would great to look into it in more detail as I'm not convinced but more than happy to stand corrected if proved wrong on this??..
I love it when something interesting pops up like the above but I'm afraid I'm moving on to update you after another weekend in the garden on my current project...
Well despite working all day Saturday and most of the day on Sunday it feels like I've done a lot but don't have so much to show for it!....
As you can see in the below picture I have now completed one side of the pond by adding rocks and back-filling with grit and pebbles. I read somewhere recently that tests have shown that pond plants will grow as well if not better in water and gravel than in pure mud! Apparently it creates stronger root runs? Well my plants although small are planted in a 50/50 mix of clay subsoil and grit so they have the best of both worlds!!...
(You will also notice that I've completed the handrail on the bridge)
The biggest problem was doing the 'pebbly' beach at the other end of the pond and trying to hide the liner without creating a low point where the water would run out and flood under the the liner. This took quite a lot of working out and some handy work with pebbles and cement!...
A you will see from the picture below I now need to raise the wall slightly to take in the extra height that the 'beach' has created. I think once this is done I might 'just' get away with it ! It's a matter of just going with it and adjusting the plan as required!...
Although the wall looks a bit 'odd' at the moment it should blend in once the other landscaping and planting is done.
You will notice from the above pictures that I have also spent some time leveling off the soil away from the pond as this is where the wild-flower meadow will be reinstated once the pond is complete.
That's it for now
Looks like good progress to me H50, preparation is very time consuming & labour intensive & just can't be rushed! It's getting easier for an observer to visualise your intentions now, did you preserve plants for your wildlife area or do you have to buy in some more??
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
It's looking good Higgy. I like the beach section now that I see it coming together. I had thought that there would be open water right up to the wall. The edges are looking good too with the stones. It's going to be cracking once it's planted up and established.
Paul
My bird photos HERE
The pond area is coming on leaps and bounds Higgy, it looks really good with the pebble "beach" the leveling out of the wild flower area and I can almost picture it planted up, its taking great shape, can't believe how much you have done in a short space of time. Fab photos too, nice to see visuals and angles, I feel as if I'm having a cup of tea sat by the side of it all LOL
Re: pond materials, I only know they used very old sandstone for this area and it took 2 years before the pond "settled" and got its own eco system going, with a lot of sunlight on the water we have had to introduce, as you say Higgy, water lilies, etc., to shade the surface so as to prevent too much algae, etc., and although we had to add blanket weed and such chemical during the first year of its life the 2nd year we haven't had to use any chemical. We do have filtration so that helps too. The only problem here is we can't get outside much to enjoy the pond on sunny days as the two nervous ducks (mallards) have become squatters lol they love nothing more than to sun bathe on the edging rocks or patrol the waterfall area even taking a swim around the reservoirs lol its a sight to behold but it goes to show how our creations bring in the wildlife, as the saying goes "build it and they will come" and this is a typical example of that. Anyway, I'm rambling again lol so good luck with the finishing off Higgy and thanks for this brilliant update :)
Hi All,
Thanks Wendy, Paul & Hazy for your comments and continued interest.
Right then I have managed a couple of hours after work both today and yesterday where I continued with my landscaping of the edges.
Yesterday I basically finished off the rocks around the back of the pond. This did take some time as I had used up all my large rocks and despite bidding on a few lots on the 'freecycle' site wasn't able to secure any more unfortunately! It really frustrates me when people advertise things and you send a polite email expressing your interest and they just never get back to you! I think I'm a little old fashioned but it takes nothing to just say that they are already gone does it!? I find if I don't know I spend time waiting for an answer and then also miss out on other materials. I suppose it's all free so I shouldn't really complain but as my old mum used to say to us kids "Manners Costeth Nothing!!" I now say that to my daughter! But it is true manners are free and are so important I always think...
Any way my lack of large rocks meant a lot of titivation with smaller stones and some old oak driftwood to try and get it to look balanced.
This is what it looked like after finishing last night, although these pictures were taken today before I started again as it was dark when I finished last night!!...
For a moment I thought that old Choco was going for a swim but the old boy can't muster up the energy for very much these days!!
So tonight it was just a further bit of titivating and fussing about the rocks again, then I leveled the large mound of soil at the rear of the pond and finished the evening off with a little planting for good measure!
To answer your question above Wendy, yes I did save what plants I could from the part of the wildflower area that was dug up and the plants that you see in the pictures below are the ones that were big enough to plant out...
So jobs left to do are:
Thanks for updating this interesting project Higgy, its good to see the fantastic progression and gives a feel for the changing gardenscape. Re: the frustrations with the rocks, I completely agree about the "good manners" bit, it takes little effort to do, just a bit of thoughtfulness on their part which would save a lot of time for folks; I think manners were the first thing I was taught after I could read my first 3 books at aged 4 years lol I am of the "old school" ilk, as is Mike and we both hold courtesy, respect and politeness as of paramount importance; we see too little of it these days sadly. And now back to your project now I've got that off my chest lol !! ....... good luck with the finishing touches including the planting, it looks amazing already and hope you are not aching too much after all that hard graft.
Looking good Higgy, you've been busy again. I would have sent you some large rocks down but I don't think the postman would be too happy carrying them to your house in his sack. Anyway, you've got me thinking more seriously about putting in a pond myself so I may just hoard my rocks for the time being and I'll see what happens after my wall is finished. Your pond is looking great though and I look forward to seeing it mature a bit as the year goes on. Looking forward to see how you’re going to plant it up.