New Project On the Horizon

I am going to be creating a wildlife pond in the near future, I always have plenty of frogs in the garden and dragonflies are regular visitors even without a pond, so providing them with a pond is what I'm going to do

I already have the liner, some materials suitable for underlay, 4 dwarf water lilies in buckets (all free from either freecycle or a friend) and some blue iris (off freecycle). I can dip in to my "bucket" for some frogbit which has increased a lot and I have some logs to place alongside it from my father in-law Cost is being kept to a minimum by doing this which is great.

It is going to be located within my veg patch which is fenced off from the rest of the garden and well away from my sons play area. My eldest son will be helping me as he is very interested and can't wait for me to get started, it will be very educational for him hopefully

I will post updates as and when its started

 

Oh Bilbo! What a fUntastic project for you, and your eldest son! And what a progression from "I can't have a pond, but I have a bucket" (or somesuch) thread

Looking forward (with great interest) in this thread and your progression. I have no doubt that you will have a grand time putting it all together

 

Update....

Well the area for the pond has now been cleared, the rhubarb which was in that spot has been relocated to the other side of the veg patch , moved quite easily too, managed to lift it with all the roots intact.

Next it will be digging time , photos of the progress will follow too

 

Looking forward to this, good luck!

Pictures please!

 

Update.....I've started digging , I'll try and get some photos on asap

 

Not much to look at but this is the progress so far a hole!!

 

phwooooooarrrrr!

 

After several hours of moderate rain last night the 'hole' already has a few inches of water in it before the liner has even gone down

 

Update....Well after a combination of bailing it out and letting the sun dry the hole out, today I managed some further progress. I lined the hole with some sand, laminate floor underlay and some old butyl pond liner off cuts after first removing any stones etc, in went my new liner and the water followed. I used about 75% tap water and 25% from my rain butts. The large excess pieces of liner have been cut off and next up I'll be hiding the liner round the edges and trimming off the final bits

Amazingly within a couple of hours I have already seen a pond skater and a diving beetle

 

Looking good @Bilbo675. If you need any yellow flag iris seed let me know I've got some ready to open anytime soon

 

Thanks for the offer Mowgley , but I already have a couple of clumps of a blue flowering pond iris that I got off freecycle ready to go in

 

I really want a pond now. I need to stay out of this area of the forum!

Looking good so far Bilbo!

 

I want a pond to now

 

Not had chance to start work on tidying the edges up yet but I popped two of the small water lilies in yesterday that I've had growing in large buckets and a few pieces of frogbit from my 'bucket'

This morning I saw even more wildlife using the pond already, 2 frogs and a large diving beetle

 

I have now covered 3/4 of the edging with turf and I'm happy with how's going, now seen as many as 4 frogs at once, so they're liking it too

Photos to follow