Pond

Hi jantwin

I too have a garden of clay so know what you are going through!!

I dug out a pond by hand and it took me ages,not much you can do really except wait for those few days when the ground is just between soggy and rock hard.Persistence and patience is what is needed (or a nice man with a digger maybe!!)

In the garden I have dug in loads of compost over 8 years and grit etc and I still find lumps of clay the size of my head!

Some parts I gave up on,treated with weedkiller and covered with gravel!

As with all gardens it is trial and error.

I have found thats most shrubs do very well but annuals are a dead loss so keep those in tubs.

Good luck with your pond and you have my sympathies!!

This thread is my garden over the years.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/forums/t/15358.aspx

Rachel

Excellent advice from madpenguin. Add plenty of compost and grit. I remember her thread, it is a fantastic read with great photos..

We have clay soil although ours isn't quite as bad as described here thank goodness.

We dug a pond and we just dug for a couple of hours each day I think. We got there eventually and the pond has been great for about 7 or 8 years now. (I can never remember) So don't despair it really is worth it.

I hope you don't mind me including a photo.

POND IN MAY

Hi all

I'm loving the pond threads on here. So many people are encouraging pondy wildlife into their gardens and garden plots. I too have a pond and until recently a few Koi Carp - sadly killed off by the severe winter.

At least I can now encourage more beasties to live there.

I must take a photo or two and post them here.

Cheers

Pipit

Hi jantwin

Have you seen this other thread on all things pondy - you may pick up some tips there.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/forums/t/4221.aspx

Cheers

Pipit

http://i56.tinypic.com/2vagkg0.jpg

This is the length of my garden and the square at the near end is the space I am trying to dig out.  I will put other pitures on when I can get the pond up and running.

Hi jantwin

Don't give up! Digging a pond in clay soil is flipping hard work, as I found myself a couple of years ago. But there's so much to look forward to. Here's my pond at one year old:

The [excellent] Pond Conservation website recommends that a good wildlife pond need not be deeper than 30 cm - the shallows are where the good stuff is at.

How about having a 'pond party'? Gather some friends, family and neighbours together and get them to bring a spade. Lay on some food and beverages and that might be enough of an incentive!

I was worn out by the time we'd finished our excavation (it's deeper than 30 cm but never mind). But within 24 hours, the first pondskater had arrived, and it just got better and better. I have blabbered on about the pond way too much already, but the highlights for me have included:

• dragonflies and damselflies, from azure damselflies to emperors
• somewhere for birds to drink and bathe - even a kestrel once!

• loads of aquatic life - beetles, water boatmen, backswimmers, caddis flies...
• it's great to sit by the pond and relax
• newts - smooth newts, and then great cresteds!!!  (they must have been in the area already, but it was amazing how quickly they found our new pond)

That's enough from me - let us know how you get on. And feel free to fire away with questions...

Katie

No such thing as babbling on  to much about a pond Katie :))

They are amasing and so much fun.  Once the hard work is done  just watching it come to life before your eyes is something else.

I love my wee pond and the life in it just keeps blowing my mind . We put nothing init other than water and a few plants . Everything else just found its way there . Within a day of building it we had our first frog  and she is still there.

the thing is It dont have to be a big pond .. An old baby bath sunk into the soil with some rocks (so beasties can make there way out if they fall in) Plants in and around to give shade and yer sorted!

Heres a photo of mine with one of the frogs!

Cheers

AL

add only a little bit of water as you go so that u have just enough water to beable to do something with it, or if that dosent work to break it down try hitting it with a shovle.

hi,

all i can suggest is persivere. its worth it a little bit each day and it will get there in the end. when we decided to put our pond in we dug down 1 ft and realised it was a rock head so took us three weeks with a pick axe! 5 years on we now have a beautiful little pond with so many frogs. they loose all inhibitions around spawning time and will sit in full view croaking away. also we have newts and if you sit quietly you can catch sight of them swimming like mini gozillas! we have had dragonflies for the last two years. a beautiful red one last summer and a huge black one the year before. So keep going think of all those muscles you are developing and the pleasure it will give you once it is all finished!

jantwin said:

I am having so much trouble trying to dig out my new pond.  I have clay and when it is wet it is too heavy  and when it is dry it is too lumpy due to the it drying out from the clay clumps.  Has anybody got any suggestoions on how I can improve this.  The earth is just like brick and needs to be broken down somehow.

Hi jantwin,

I also have clay and have recently dug out a koi pond by hand which was hard work especially as I managed to pick a spot which was obviously the spoil dump when the house was built!

The only way that I could even get a spade into the earth was to use a wrecking bar first to break it up, then I could shovel it out! Apologies if you already know but a wrecking bar is a five foot long solid iron bar with a sharp point on the end. If you push this into the soil with some force and wriggle it around a bit it will loosen up the soil making digging out much easier.

Your other alternative would be to built the pond part raised....depending on how deep you want it, dig out a hole 1'-2' deep and then use something like railway sleepers around this hole to double the depth. You may be thinking that you don't want the pond raised?...simply use all the soil you have dug out banked up against the outside of the sleepers to create a nice even slope up to the pond which you can sow with grass seed or plant with whatever takes your fancy!...If using sleepers remember to use untreated or wildlife friendly ones! I would also recommend using some polythene where the soil meets the wood to protect them from rotting... 

Looking at your picture if you used sleepers you could make the pond level with you decking and then slope away into the lawn? I have my decking level with the top of my pond but on a slightly bigger scale and it makes a wonderful place to sit and feel like you are right amongst the action!...

There are some pictures of my pond build and the decking on my gardening blog  (link below) which might help, Although my pond is part raised fairly high out of the ground they might give you some ideas? I have further pictures of different aspects of using sleepers like this so feel free to ask if they would be of use?