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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
Hello, best of luck with your garden pond. Just a note of caution, however. I have just had a second year with all my fish being killed by frogs when they are mating. They grab hold of the fish in amplexus and suffocate them by holding their gills closed. Very distressing when your fish have survived the winter only to be killed by breeding frogs. We took two bucket fulls to the canal last year, but have had to do the same this year! Hope this doesn't happen in your pond.
Hi thanks for the wishes.
I didnt really want fish in the pond but Kids got there before me and 7 tiny gold fish were deposited.
We have two large lumps of Frog Spawn and still have the 7 fish who I'm sure will gobble up the tadpoles.
I have heard that male frogs get so carried away they grip onto anything but didnt know it was called Amplexus - new word for me ;-)
I just hope some of the tadpoles make it to adult frogs.
A :-)