What jobs are we doing in the garden today 2016

Always the rustling in the bushes!

 

Sorry about that, Loofah

 

Oh you guys lol

I told the neighbourhood watch to be on lookout too

 

I went back to the pond today and moved a Fern in the Bog Garden that I had planted earlier this year without thinking of future growth by other plants. The result was the the newly planted Fern was being totally shadowed...........should have used my head to look ahead Anyway, it's been replanted on another bank where it should thrive.

 

Hi Magnus, it's a pond I dug with the help of my Son-in-Law back in '93 on a bottom part of the garden which slopes, and in those days, was an patch of land that we had used as a Rose area but had moved them into other areas. So it took nearly 5 days of digging in what was supposed to be sand but turned out to be brick hard clay I had a reasonable idea of the shape and length, [around 22' long, 12 to 15' wide, a maximum depth of 3.5 feet, with a 8" wide ledge down at a depth of 10" around 3 sides and a sloping shallow 3' wide shelf at the other end to enable any thing that falls in a chance to get out.
I'm a fan of the late great Geoff Hamilton and took his advice about adding an integral dry brick wall from one end of the pond to the other and about 3' from the bank. I then added, as per his advice, the area between the bank and the brick wall with ordinary garden soil. Then when the pond was filled with water the area between the bank and the brick wall was saturated, and fed by the pond, becoming the Bog Garden. The liner was thick Butyl and underneath that was put old carpets.
Planting of the margins was done with plants in crates and, again following Geoff's advice an over planting of the margins to ensure that as much nutrients were taken out of the water to maintain clarity and discourage algae and unwanted weed other than oxygenating. That has worked and I've never had any problems, so Thank You Geoff. There is a small seating area with a bench at the East end and the pond has a Jasmine and Clematis hedge with a gate on the North side. So you can sit down there without seeing the House or the garden.

Apologies for side tracking the Thread.

I fish around Rutland, Norfolk, Suffolk, Peterborough, Leicestershire for two weeks every year where I can satisfy my liking for lakes, ponds, rivers and wildlife.

 

It's called Barnsdale, Anthony, and is just off the A606 between Oakham and Stamford beside the Rutland Waters reservoir. I've been there more than a couple of times and it's a very interesting place. They've got a bust of Geoff in the memorial garden.