New pond...

Claire, your pond is coming along very nicely.

Fancy, I love all the various plants with the different colours and heights. We are redoing part of ours, used to be the bog area, so I am looking for ideas and think I have found some. What are those 3 shrubs with the white/light leaves, and would they grow in semi-shade?

 

Hi Clare, if you build up the gravel over the rocks with just the tops showing, it would make it look more natural and also hide your liner

 

Thanks all for the comments and advice. Already it's a huge source of pleasure, I tend to go out for a wander in the garden two or three times a day and often end up spending ten minutes just gazing into the pond - great for some time out! There are some kind of baby water beetles in there, they are absolutely tiny and it's really funny to watch them whizzing about.

I have plenty of suggestions to mull over, but I think I'm going to just let things settle down for a bit and see how it goes - although I do take the point that I need to give some consideration to the rocks on the beech...

The "rocks" (actually old fence post ballasts we dug out of the garden and kept on one side - knew they'd come in handy for something!) the other end need shifting in a bit to cover the liner I think, bf and I were trying to summon the energy last weekend but never quite got round to it, they're *very* heavy!

 

if they are "THAT" heavy i suggest you move them now, the weight may cause them to "sink" and puncture you liner.

 

Or, if you want to put heavy rocks in your pond, lay a sand base about 1/2 deep where you want the rocks to go then use a pimpled rubber car mat underneath your rocks. That way there's no danger of them moving or puncturing your liner. I also use rubber mats any time I have to get the waders on and enter the pond.

 

No, they're just on the edge. I wouldn't be daft enough to put them in the pond!

 

You cannot beat a pond, some pics of mine, year 3 now.

 

That looks great Keving! I particularly like the idea of the reflective ball near the pond, I should think you get a cool reflection of reflection of reflection thing going on

 

Claire75, the reflections do look great, especially at night with same lights on the water.

 

Keving,

How on earth did you get that stunning fish on the right to pose for the camera like that?

:D "I'm ready for my close up Mr Demille"

TO

 

By taking 100 photos with a digi camera and ditching 99!

 

your fish look super Keving, were you feeding them when you took the pics?

 

Yes

 

Oh - actually, the MAIN reason for putting the beach in was so that there is shallow water, which tends to contain more life, at one end. On sunny days my tadpoles spend most of their time around here, and so does some of the other pondlife. The deep part maintains a more constant temperature, so when it's colder things tend to move deeper - it also won't freeze in winter and I need a deep part for some plants too.

I have thinned out the small rocks though, but have left some in, as the tadpoles seem to like to lurk under the underhangs and clearly don't agree with you that the stones should be removed :D .

 

Claire75
My pond has lots of life at the shallower end, including this fellow, only seen him once.