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During last year's end of April holiday, we hired a mini digger to build a pond and dug a rough hole.
We weren't expecting the next step to take over a year to get around to! Having decided that our rough hole in the ground wouldn't really cut it, we bit the bullet and hired 2 men who knew what they were doing with a digger, and who turned the rough hole into this:
They added a shelf along one side and a shallow area at one end which will become a bog garden. We covered the excavation with a layer of sand:
We created a wall to separate the pond from the bog garden:
My parents came over for a pond-lining party:
During the course of last Sunday we got the underlay and liner in place and began to fill the pond.
The bog garden got a filling with water to flatten the liner. This will be pumped out when we create the bog:
The other half and I still have to conclude our argument about where to build up a rockery for a waterfall that will go around/down the middle of/next to the bog garden and I think we need to increase the height of the wall and shore up a low point in the banking, but it's already been idyllic to sit on the edge of the pond in the sunshine, dangling our feet in the water and watching the sky reflected in the water's ripples, and the water reflected on the branches of the willows at the edge of the pond.
It's now payday and my fingers are itching to get out my bank card and splurge on plants! I can't wait to see it planted up and see what moves in!
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
Another lovely pair of photos....especially the second one.
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.
Forgot to add: we had our first Great Diving Beetle the other day. Sadly she seemed rather uncoordinated and we found her dead in the pond yesterday, but it was nice to see her here, even if the water boatmen didn't seem so impressed!
Let's hope you see more of them. Did your raven ever return?
Nope, sadly our raven was a one-off. I believe the diving beetles are carnivorous, which might explain why the boatmen were ramming it! There are plenty of friendlier smaller water beetles in the pond though.
You're still one raven ahead of me. Did you hear about the nesting ravens at Wellesley College earlier this year? They used the fire escape staircase on one of the buildings there.
Just looked through his thread, what a great job you have done Masie, well done. It all looks wonderful.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
There are still dragonflies by the pond, possibly even new hatches as there are lots of the larva casings on the plant leaves. I'm spending my lunchtimes down there in the sun at the moment, enjoying the birdsong.
I have tarps covering half the grass by the pond. That area has a lot of the spoil from the digging and is very uneven. Ideally the grass will be killed off so we can rotorvate the area, make it nice and flat (and not full of unexpected grass-covered lumps and ankle-killing holes..) and seed it with wildflowers. I have a fibreglass pond section left over from the rockery build and have a mad half-plan to make some sort of stream down to the pond's beach...
Thanks for update vid M, just love to hear that special long whistle the Starlings make, such a near view of them actually doing it from my kitchen window! Your Bullrushes look fantastic!
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
Some underwater footage from lunchtime today in lovely sunshine.
Thats amazing Maisie, such a brilliant idea to go under the surface of the pond for a scout around with the camera, amazing how clear it looks so the pond plants are doing their job well; all the little snails and other critters, wonderful to see, thanks for sharing :) the sound is eerie and very effective lol
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Regards, Hazel