Dreaming of a pond - Part 12 of our garden makeover

Garden transformation Part 12 – My first pond

I’ve always felt incredibly grateful for the childhood I had. Growing up in Cheshire meant lots of ponds and ditches. There is a wonderful site Cheshire Wildlife Trust telling you all about ponds and wildlife in Cheshire. They do a lot of good work to try and protect Cheshire wildlife.

I was a child that liked water very much. Even when my dad was washing his car, I’d be there trying to dam the water to stop it reaching the grid.

My love of ponds really started though at primary school. When we were seven the wonderful teacher we had, was a gardener and wildlife lover. She regularly took us out and about in the village, but the one trip that’s always stayed with me, was when she took us pond dipping. It was hard to believe that a muddy looking pond could be so full of life!

Ponds forgotten through my teenage years, I finally got my own garden. This was the time I started watching Gardeners World with the late, great Geoff Hamilton. His love of gardening and wildlife was infectious.

Geoff was an early pioneer of organic gardening and he believed that encouraging as much wildlife into your garden as possible, creates a balance. Thus meaning you shouldn’t have to resort to chemicals. This seemed so simple and obvious to me, fortunately most people have now caught up with him.

The most essential thing you needed in your garden according to Geoff was water. He couldn’t stress enough how much wildlife this would attract into your garden. From that time on I’ve desperately wanted my own pond. At the time I didn’t think our first garden was big enough, but with hindsight we could have easily fitted a small one in.

Everyone now seems to be extolling the many virtues of having water in your garden, and the benefits it brings. Even if you only have room for a large pot, as this can create a little wildlife environment with oxygenating plants. The RHS have a good step-by-step guide to creating a wildlife container pond.

July 2016- My first pond

Three years after moving here, almost to the day, my husband broke ground for the pond – he’s my mini digger!

At this time I was supposed to be continuing to build the ‘The Great Wall‘ whilst he laboured for me, but I was laid up with sciatica – very frustrating!

On the plus side, my weeks spent sitting around had allowed me to research and design the pond.

August 2016 – I get my trowel back!

After weeks, that felt like an eternity, not doing anything in the garden. I was finally fit enough to lay a few bricks in the newly dug out pond.

Our ground is so difficult to dig, not only will a spade not go into it, but a fork won’t either, you can only use a pick then shovel the spoil, very hard going! As you get deeper down it is mainly sand and gravel, meaning it starts to collapse, so we had to terrace it.

My husband dug a trench next to the greenhouse, concreted it, and then I built a small retaining wall. We certainly didn’t want our beautiful new greenhouse collapsing into the hole as we dug!

We then repeated this, for the other three sides, the great wall obviously being used as the fourth side.

The whole area was dug out to approximately 25”/650mm deep, before starting on ‘the deep bit’!

September 2016 – Digging deep

Whilst I was laid up researching wildlife ponds. I discovered that you should have a really deep part, so that when it freezes in the winter, all the little critters with be safe and cosy in the depths.

The deepest area in our pond is almost 4ft/1.2m.

Rescuing my frogy

We concreted the very bottom and covered it over to dry, the next day when we uncovered it, there was a tiny little froglet. Poor thing was covered in sand where he had been trying to jump out. I picked him out to put him under the hedge. I didn’t kiss him, but I did whisper “come back next year” – he didn’t!

The deep area was made using concrete blocks to form a square. We then concreted around the one end, and built another retaining wall to make a shelf for the marginal plants to sit on.

The soil we’d dug out from the deep end, we used to create a slope on the other side. This is essential for any creatures that fall in, so that they can get out. We built a retaining wall across the back to hold the soil back and contain the plant roots.

Brickwork complete, trusty riddle in the background

At this stage the pond was put on hold as we went back to our numerous other projects.

April 2017 – The grand filling

Unfortunately it took another eight months before the grand filling took place, but it was worth the wait.

We finally ordered the pond liner & underlay. When we came to fit them it was quite a job!

The underlay was relatively easy, as you could cut it to shape. I think my bit of sewing experience helped.

The liner on the other hand was a nightmare! Firstly it was so heavy, but trying to fold it into all the nooks & crannies was horrendously difficult.

We got there eventually and the magical moment finally came to start filling it!

As it started to fill we suddenly realised that we would have to place the first large rocks into the very bottom as it was filling. Otherwise we were going to get rather wet!

Every rock that went into the pond, we had dug out of our garden. As my husband was digging I would be constantly picking the best ones out and saving them. We ended up with rock piles and buckets of pebbles everywhere.

I was not popular if they had to be moved, which regularly happened as we started work on different parts of the garden. My husband saying “What are you planning on doing with all of these stones?” Me answering “I’ll think of something!”

Ducks

We have a large pond in the village with ducks permanently in residence, they do wander around the village and have been spotted in our road regularly, but never in our garden, until…. As we were filling the pond two ducks suddenly arrived in the garden. The plan was to attract wildlife but this wasn’t really what I was expecting!

May 2017 – Planting the pond

All through May I was buying pond plants, again after much research as there are some pretty invasive plants to avoid. I planted a small yellow water lily ‘Joey Tomocik’ some yellow and purple iris, Geum rivale, Water forget-me-nots, Juncus ensifolius and lots more.

Lily ‘Joey Tomocik’, Iris ensata ‘Japenese Clematis’, Iris Pseudacorus

June 2017 – Finishing the edges

We had started laying paths around the garden, so decided to use some off-cuts to edge the pond.

It was now complete and waiting for residents to arrive.

Twenty four hours after filling the pond we had pond skaters ‘Gerris lacustris’ on it. As an inpatient person, I was very impressed with how quickly the first wildlife had found it.

However, that first year the only other inhabitants were pond snails and water boatmen. I was going to have to wait for my frogs!