Wildlife pond.

[Cato]

I've been wanting to make one for a while, finally found the time to get it sorted. Sort of a flat ended oval, I'll grab a pic at some point, stepped to a max of 600mm, beach/shallow end etc, followed all the info from RSPB, RHS and so on. It's just over 4 metres long and 2 metres wide.

1mm thick pond liner and underlay £385. One tonne of Cotswold walling stone £145. One tonne of rockery rocks (some sort of granite) £305. Inclusive of VAT and delivery for both. Add on the yet to be bought plants and you're at a grand! If you were paying someone to do it you can add a skip (7 cube have gone up to £240 from 1st April) and two blokes for two days.

For that money there had better be antelope and tigers side by side drinking from it by July or I'm going to be upset.

 

[Fintray]

Might be worth a look at this video.

 

[Parm]

I've been wanting to make one for a while, finally found the time to get it sorted. Sort of a flat ended oval, I'll grab a pic at some point, stepped to a max of 600mm, beach/shallow end etc, followed all the info from RSPB, RHS and so on. It's just over 4 metres long and 2 metres wide.

1mm thick pond liner and underlay £385. One tonne of Cotswold walling stone £145. One tonne of rockery rocks (some sort of granite) £305. Inclusive of VAT and delivery for both. Add on the yet to be bought plants and you're at a grand! If you were paying someone to do it you can add a skip (7 cube have gone up to £240 from 1st April) and two blokes for two days.

For that money there had better be antelope and tigers side by side drinking from it by July or I'm going to be upset.

Are you following orders from SHMBO

 

[Cato]

Are you following orders from SHMBO

Breaking with tradition, in this instance no. She's all for it, but I've been making things a bit more wildlife friendly over the last few years, the pond was the final (most expensive) piece of the puzzle. Log piles, wild flower seeds, area of the grass not cut etc are easy and can be done without too much time taken up.

We do quite well with urban wildlife. The houses are inter-war so they have large gardens, mature trees, and those weird areas that the piecemeal building at that time left behind. So we see bats, owls, far more bird types than I could name, foxes, amphibians and there's a badger sett that's at the end of our's and next door's garden. So the wildlife thing is to help the ones we know of, and try to attract more really.

 

[gaz1]

@brewdexta

built a large pond

https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/rather-large-pond.83140/

 

[Cato]

@brewdexta

built a large pond

https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/rather-large-pond.83140/

I wonder what the threshold is where a large pond becomes a small lake?

 

[grim_d]

I wonder what the threshold is where a large pond becomes a small lake?

When sunlight can no longer reach the bottom.

 

[brewdexta]

Its worth getting a bit of depth, helps critters stay alive when it freezes over. I can't remember the recommended depth now, but at least a good couple of foot springs to mind.

 

[OJCar]

Our pond at the cottage is about 3 feet across and five feet long and two and a half feet deep.
At least 11 frogs have been over wintering in it this year.

 

[Bullet2012]

When I put our pond in under strict supervision we had frogs move in the next day, bloody amazing nature is.
we still have lots of frogs, regularly see hedgehog and a variety of birds drinking the water. Also lots of worms and other aquatic creatures frequent.
it’s very therapeutic sitting watching all the life a little pond brings to a garden

 

[8ob]

We dug about twenty ponds on some MOD ground as part of some ecology trade off for ground that was built on, the ponds were straight forward but they were quite specific about a ramp each end for creatures to be able to get in/out. I am no pondist but its something to consider.

Bob

 

[redlig]

I've been wanting to make one for a while, finally found the time to get it sorted. Sort of a flat ended oval, I'll grab a pic at some point, stepped to a max of 600mm, beach/shallow end etc, followed all the info from RSPB, RHS and so on. It's just over 4 metres long and 2 metres wide.

1mm thick pond liner and underlay £385. One tonne of Cotswold walling stone £145. One tonne of rockery rocks (some sort of granite) £305. Inclusive of VAT and delivery for both. Add on the yet to be bought plants and you're at a grand! If you were paying someone to do it you can add a skip (7 cube have gone up to £240 from 1st April) and two blokes for two days.

For that money there had better be antelope and tigers side by side drinking from it by July or I'm going to be upset.

I did a pond a few years ago. 20ft x20ft . scrounged liner from the set of the Private Ryan film. No underlay , ferreted about for some stone from a derelict cottage . Galvanised milk crate with a few lily type plants from a neighbour. Borrow next doors mini digger one evening that was on hire for a couple of days. Total cost Zero. Just let it get on with itself and at present there is about 3bucket loads of tadpoles and a pair of ducks plus all the usual " beings". If it's for the wild life they are not too impressed with a lovely looking garden feature . All they need is a bit of secluded water.

 

[Bullet2012]

We dug about twenty ponds on some MOD ground as part of some ecology trade off for ground that was built on, the ponds were straight forward but they were quite specific about a ramp each end for creatures to be able to get in/out. I am no pondist but its something to consider.

Bob

That was the supervisors (SWMBO) design that creatures could be able to decide to comit hari cari or escape from a watery death.

 

[addjunkie]

I know someone who did one quite large at a guess about 1/4 acre ish…plants, fish all sorts,
A local heron became his new best friend!

 

[Morris]

We are doing this as well. I'm slowly sorting the paths at the moment then it's onto the pond and rockery.
We already have a large wood pile in the back garden along with a small "forest glade" area. This has wild violets, primroses and cowslips which arrived by themselves. We have also planted wildlife hedging which is getting well established this year (18 months old now).
The side and front are the larger gardens (triangular corner plot) and this is where the pond will be along with a wildflower meadow aka the front lawn. I hate lawns, bloody useless things.

 

[Bullet2012]

. I hate lawns, bloody useless things.

 

[Cato]

Well exciting times at the first anniversary of the wildlife pond. Everything's settling/bedding in nicely, plants coming back after the winter and the surrounding 'wild' area is coming along nicely. With the plants doing well the insects came in abundance, and now we have actual fauna.
This time last year it looked like this.

It now looks like this.

and the newest resident looks like this.

 

[Cato]

I thought I'd put a photo of it at this stage, but apparently not. This is the freshly dug hole (not doing that again!) the deepest part is 2'6". Then it had a sand blind, some of that fibre matting stuff, and the liner. Then the base layer of material in the water was pea gravel and the beach end had sharp sand and pea gravel. Add rocks and plants, then leave nature to do its thing. A lot of work, way more expensive than you think, and you have to be patient but I'm genuinely chuffed with how it's come on.

 

[Robotstar5]

I put one in at my mums house in about 1988, this was it in 2010

and how it looked when we sold the house last year

 

[Cato]

I put one in at my mums house in about 1988, this was it in 2010



and how it looked when we sold the house last year

I wonder how many creatures that provided a habit and source of water for over all those years? So few gardens have any sort of diversity now, the current trend seems to be laying a kitchen floor outside and sticking furniture on it or covering everything in plastic grass which not only manages to look crap but makes a mockery of environmental regulations in the building regs.