When Elaine moved into her house over thirty years ago, the pond was there already. Roughly circular, it is 1.5m in diameter and lined with a butyl-type rubber liner.
What makes it special is the series of mini-waterfalls, powered by a motor which circulates the water from the bottom pond back up to the top, creating a soothing rippling sound. The hill which the waterfalls flow down was created with the earth dug out when the pond was built.
In terms of wildlife, Elaine has three fish in the pond (you can see one in the picture). There have been newts and frogs in the pond in the past but there are none at the moment — if anyone has frogspawn to spare in the spring, please let Elaine know! There used to be a pair of mallards who would swoop down and enjoy the pond, but they never nested.
Elaine says that the pond needs little maintenance — she just needs to scoop dead leaves out in winter.
One day in April 2019, I decided to build a pond. I’d just dug out a huge, thirsty New Zealand flax plant and needed something to put in its place. I like things to happen quickly and easily and so, after minimal research I realised that digging and lining a pond from scratch was not for me. Instead, I went online and ordered a rigid pond liner. This is basically a black, plastic pond-shaped container, roughly 90cm x 60cm (cost then around £17).
A few days later it arrived. I dug a hole, stuck the container in and backfilled the gaps round the edges with soil. Next up I needed water. Tap water according to all websites is a no-no — too many chemicals — so was I going to have to wait until it rained?? Luckily, I live on a friendly, helpful street, so after a call out to my neighbours, I was soon helping myself to the water from a nearby rain butt. I added some rocks, a log or two and bingo! my pond was ready for action.
I did need some water plants, though. Back to the internet, and I found a helpful website called www.puddleplants.co.uk. I ordered myself the Frog and Tadpole plant collection (cost around £55), along with gravel and baskets. This consisted of the following:
1 x oxygenator: Willow moss
7 x marginal plants: Marsh marigold, brooklime, lesser spearwort, forget-me-not, water mint, bog bean and yellow flag
1 x deep water: fringe lily
I planted these up (i.e. put them in the baskets and stuck them in the pond). It looked a bit crowded now, but quite promising. Then I sat back and waited for the wildlife to appear.
After a week, we spotted a frog! An actual frog, already! We called her Spot. How had she got there? We don’t know. We made her feel very welcome.
Over the next months the plants grew. Very soon finding Spot became a real challenge. In fact, finding the pond itself became quite a challenge as the plants thrived and spread and flowered. Soon the pond looked quite established. When it rained, I enjoyed watching the pond fill up and the drops bouncing on the surface (what surface remained visible, that is). When it didn’t rain, I enjoyed contemplating its fresh green coolness. The water remained clear rather than cloudy — thanks, I assume to the selection of plants.
Now, nearly three years on, I wouldn’t be without my pond. We cleared out the pond last year to cut back some plants, and discovered a newt! Spot (at least, we think it’s Spot) has resurfaced every year, and last year was joined by some tadpoles the girls had ‘rescued’. We’ve also seen snails, a dragonfly and have enjoyed watching birds drinking and splashing in its water.
The arrival of a spaniel puppy in our lives has posed the biggest threat to the pond’s existence. She took against the mesh plant baskets and devoted a lot of time to yanking them out and chewing them to a pulp, casting aside the plant in the process. I became used to seeing dried out plants languishing on the grass. We’ve now fenced off the pond area which is a shame but necessary at this stage in our puppy’s life.
So what would I do differently? Not much, really — I’m delighted with the manifold returns for pretty little effort. I think I ordered too many plants; I’d have been better off just asking their advice for two or three essential plants. I think I should also have dug a deeper hole to embed it better. I’d quite like a little fountain, now. I also kind of wish I’d ordered a bigger pond — maybe digging a proper, permanent lined one will be this year’s project.
On a frosty morning in February, we visited Gill and Tom’s pond. Tom built their pond over ten years ago, digging it out himself to create a hole about 1.5m x 1m and ranging from 16–30cm deep.
It’s double lined with a thick white base layer which prevents sharp things from creating leaks, and then a dark waterproof lining made of Butyl (synthetic rubber). Stones round the edge anchor the lining and provide shelter for wildlife. It occasionally needs topped up if the weather is very dry. They bought their plants from a garden centre, probably Klondyke. Canadian pond weed spreads like crazy and can be a bit of a nightmare; they also have a floating rootless plant called water-soldier. Initially the plants were planted in mesh baskets to help them establish. Irises and yellow flag grow around the fringes.
Over the years they’ve seen a huge range of wildlife which has found its way to their pond: common and palmate newts, frogs, toads, a dragonfly, damselflies, mallard ducks and even a heron. They once heard a frog hiss as it defended itself from a cat! Snails were introduced from another pond as they can help in keeping the water clean.
I had a vague aspiration for many years to make a small pond in our (shared) back garden. In 2021, I finally got around to making it happen and mistakenly thought it would work best if I could just sink a smallish container into the ground. However, after a couple of failed attempts, I did what many people do, and turned to YouTube for pointers to a better solution.
The idea of constructing a pond with a butyl liner was something I’d shied away from over a number of years — it seemed way too tricky. Nevertheless, after watching an inspiring three-part series of videos on this approach from the excellent YouTube channel Wild Your Garden with Joel Ashton, eventually I decided to give it a try.
Pond construction
It took me a while to figure out the best (or least bad) location for the pond, taking into consideration sunlight, leaf litter, existing plants, washing lines and the desire paths of three Tibetan Terriers. In the end, various factors led me to constrain the hole to roughly 2m x 1m. Although a greater depth is recommended, the best I could manage to dig down was about 40cm.
Digging the hole was ‘interesting’. There is only about 10 cm of topsoil in our garden (apart from beds that have been worked and composted), followed by a layer of building rubble and then clay and stones. After removing the bigger stones, I ended up with many sacks of clay subsoil. And aches in muscles that hadn’t been used in a while.
Rather than using special-purpose fleece, as suggested by the Ashton video, I lined the hole with various large pieces of thick fabric that were lying around. This was followed by the butyl liner and then another layer of fabric, namely an decorator’s sheet provided by my neighbour Anne. Finally, I used up all the bags of subsoil to provide a low-nutrient substrate for pond plants. This approach means that you don’t need to bother with special planting baskets.
I realised, however, that I needed more subsoil for the pond margins, and making a virtue of necessity, I dug yet another hole, in a shadier spot nearer to the garden wall, which became a small bog garden. The hole was lined with an old camping groundsheet which I perforated with a garden fork, and then filled with garden compost. The bog garden was situated to receive any run-off water if the pond overflowed (as it did during the heavy downpours last year).
Because of the fine particles in the clay that I was using as a plant substrate, the water stayed very cloudy for a couple of months and I thought I might have to add something to pull the particles out of suspension. However, by September the water had started to clear considerably and is now fine.
Planting
Following Ashton’s advice, I tried to plant up the pond in terms of different zones, as shown in the diagram. Over the second half of 2021, I ended up adding all the plants shown in the list.
Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get much in the way of surface cover, that is, plants in the D and E categories. This probably led to some of the algae build-up that appeared — hopefully I can remedy this over the coming months.
Photos
Early June 2021 — the pond is in place but not many plants and the water is cloudySeptember 2021 — plants have flourished. A mini wildflower meadow has been started on the righthand side of the pond.Bog garden, September 2021February 2022
Video of pond snail
As many people have observed, wildlife starts appearing very soon after a pond is constructed — lots of insects, one frog which took up residence in a crevice under a stone slab, birds paddling in the shallows.
The pond snail shown in the little video found its way into the pond during the course of the summer. I have no idea how it got there!
One of the main virtues of a pond? I feel happy when it rains!