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Having moved to our new house last summer we decided we would build a pond. The garden was already full of Frogs and Toads and just down the road is an ancient pond thats protected due to its population of Great Crested Newts. The bottom of the garden has a small ditch which is seasonally water filled, totally over grown with hedge and nettles and so we decided to place the pond as close to this as possible to create hopefully a wildlife area in an otherwise fairly desperate piece of the garden. Living mainly overseas time was a bit short for us and when we had to leave the UK the pond still wasn't totally finished. Hopefully in June we can put the finishing touches to it. Size wise it sort of ballooned as we stated digging. Finial dimensions are about 16 x 12 feet with a maximum depth of just over 3 feet - Thank goodness for the ditch to take all the soil.
A few pics that sort of tell the ponds story.
Digging over - thank goodness.
Wondering where the plants will go.
Filling the pond - note, you can never have too much liner heheheh
Filled up but not quite level - more digging required.
Word quickly spread something was happening over the hedge
Edged but not finished. As far as we got before we had to leave. Quick visit end of March so fingers crossed for Frog spawn. Should get it completely finished this summer I hope.
Andrew
Crikey that's more of a small lake:-) Good effort, I'd love a garden big enough to put a pond like that in it!
Wow, that took a lot of hard work, but certainly looks worth all your effort.
Thanks all,
I've asked my neighbor to check if we have any frog spawn, fingers crossed.
Hi Andrew
That's a cracking pond, and it looks well worth all of your efforts in building it. :-))
I hope that you have frogspawn in there by now. :-)
Best wishes Chris
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That's a great pond, and gorgeous view over the fields. I hope that fence/hedge is more substantial than it looks, otherwise you'll be having your four-footed friends coming for an even closer look!
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
Hi all thanks for the comments. An update is that we now do have frogs spawn in the pond loads of it according to our neighbour :-)
That pond looks great and always good to see them develop from a hole in the ground. Would love to see some more pictures as it matures and develops further?
Hi Andrew,
The pond does look great I have a similar one in my garden with decking round so we can sit by it and watch the newts, frogs, toads and all the other insects that inhabit it. We also get the birds bathing in it and occasionally the odd Heron but I dont encourage this..we have no fish but I dont want them getting the newts or frogs etc...last year a blackbird took a newt from the pond!!! (Never have camera available when something like that happens). You will get great pleasure from it. However a word of warning in Dec 2010 I went away for several days and the cold weather -13 plus descended! When I got back my pond was frozen solid even though I have loads of exit points and pipes in the water....! It was solid by about 6 inches thick I could not get through it even with hot water etc. Unfortunately this killed my pond and the water went black once the ice had gone. I had to empty my pond and to my regret I found 41 dead frogs and 1 dead newt!!! and most of the oxygenating plants had died also!! I have emptied the pond cleaned it out and refilled it. The newts are back and I am getting vegetation in it. Not seen frogs or toads yet but I am hopeful. For next winter I am going to buy a pond heater to help stop the same thing happening again!! On a brighter note enjoy the pond sit by it with a glass of wine or beer and enjoy it through the spring/summer.
Steve
Hey ho Andrew
Don't know if you're aware of Freecycle groups but our local one, North Norfolk, had someone with buckets of spawn going begging - and this is right time of year that someone near you may have too much in their pond also - you can put a 'wanted' poster up on site also.
I wish we could have a pond but live between two roads and sure poor froglets would get swished.
Hope this is of use and that you get some response.
Sheila
Steven
Thanks for the comments on the pond. I was back in the UK two days ago and it seems to have survived the winter OK. waters a bit brown due to leaves settling but I've cleared them out and I hope once the plants start to take the water will sort itself out. I have a big job this june of releveling the edges and cementing the stones in place mind you.
Thanks for the tip. I do have two quite large bunches (is that the right word) of Frogs spawn whaich was really exciting as we only built the pond last summer. I'm back in Oman now so its difficult to connect with others regarding swaps etc. i must admit though if anybody is doing a pond weed thinning exercise this June I'd certainly like to take some excess weed from them ffor use in the pond.
One bunch of the frogs spawn had pretty much hatced witth a mass of tiny black tadpoles now wiggling about ontop of the spwan jelly.
Exciting times ahead. Cant wait to see how the pond looks come june. Fingers crossed for lots of tadpoles swimming about.
Andrew :-)