A nature pond

I have the same problem, Ellen!!!

Yep, that sound like it, Ellen. It's a clear [pun intended] sign that there is an excess of nutrients in the water and the algae will being given the opportunity to grow. If you could, ideally, fit in a few more marginals that will take out the nutrients in the water for themselves to grow that should cure the problem.
As I've said before in other posts I did a bit of research before digging my pond back in '93 and found the late great Geoff Hamiliton's books and advice on how to garden, build ponds etc to be the one that had a great natural understanding of wild life, common sense and knowledge that was given in such a way it just made you want to go out and start digging!!!
One of his tips for building a pond was an unusual one as after digging the pond out, and lining it with whatever you were going to use, it was to integrate a Bog Garden into the pond alongside one of the banks. So after you'd lined the pond, and before you put water in, you laid a simple "dry stone" brick wall from one end of the pond to the other to a width of your choosing and to a height above the level of the water. Then you filled the gap between the brick wall and the bank with ordinary garden soil. After that it is a matter of just filling the pond with water. The water will seep through the gaps in the dry stone brick wall and soak into the soil giving you a permanent Bog Garden easy to plant up with whatever plants you want. The advantage of such a idea is that the Bog Garden, being actually part of the pond, also extracts nutrients out of the water, for the plants in it to use, along with the marginal, oxygenators and other plants in the pond.
I followed his advice and my Bog Garden is the length of the pond and around 3' to 4' in width and I have had absolutely no problems with it whatsoever and it is a key piece in the pond making it look an even more natural wildlife pond.

 

Oh? What colour are we going for today?

 

Sounds brilliant Pity my pond is a tiny one, maybe next time I'll 'go large'

 

Like all things in Life and gardening you've just got to do your own thing and enjoy what you've got!!

 

It sounds like a nice pond. One of the things about a raised pond is that the walls will absorb the warmth of the Sun [when it's out] and warm the water in it.

 

Yep, I've been feeding mine for the last week or two........but everything seems earlier this year!!

 

The lily I was given has bloomed! Totally chuffed at that




Also dragged some blanket weed out so not got the balance perfect yet...

 

There's another one creeping up from the depths too - quite fun as you can practically watch it happen in front of you

 

The lily (think I mentioned it on another thread) was savaged by what we suspect was a young fox. Having clipped off the two flowers which totally busted up and some of the leaves, it is now nestled once again in the deep...

Today I happened to notice something odd. A small black creature, about 3/4cm that if it had had a tail I would have said was a newt tadpole (is it a tadpole for a newt?!). It wiggled up a stalk of something from the deep, stayed near the surface (taking air??) and then wiggled back down.

I had a quick google but haven't seen anything that looks exactly like it yet...