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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.
Male Common Darter I think
I decided to treat myself to a new toy with the help of some saved up Nectar points and got myself a Samsung W300 waterproof camcorder. I won't win any awards for my cinematography (since it's based on "point randomly around the water") but this is my first test in the pond.
Quick update on how everything's settling in and maturing:
Maisie, that's looking beautiful - you would think it had been there for years. Hope you and your feathered family are all well.
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.
Looking really picturesque M - any more frog sightings?
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
Well Maisie, your pond is amazing. Can't wait for my plants to get established. I really should be at the supermarket but instead I have sat and read all about your pond journey. Brilliant.
It's beautiful, Maisie; I wish I had space for one.
Who needs a wildlife park when you have created this pond in your back garden, you and yours will enjoy your creation for many years to come like all pond owners do shame our garden is only small or I would have made ours the size of your, Maisie.
Jim
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Thanks everyone :) I'm still slightly amazed at how it's turned out! I didn't have more than a rough sketch to work from and more or less winged it. I had a few features like the shelf and beach that I knew I wanted, but the rockery and planting I made up as I went along. Having great advice from the aquatics nursery man really helped for getting the right amount of the right type of plants, especially for wildlife, but I've also added a few on the basis of "oooh, that's pretty!".
Can't wait to finally get the water features plumbed in and wired up :)
7 months on and we still haven't got round to plumbing anything in, but thanks to the lack of frost most things seem to have survived the winter, and now that Spring is here, the pond plants and rockery are really established. The floating oxygenators are getting nice and big and judging by the clarity of the water, the ecosystem seems to have stabilised. The snails are thriving :) I've had to get rid of a few bits of blanketweed which have probably grown due to the sunlight through the un-covered pond surface. The willows have dumped a layer of leaves on a portion of the pond surface, but only part, so I think I'll leave it there to decompose/be eaten by snails/be absorbed as nutrients by the pond plants.
Seems the pond is a hit with other residents too!