Thanks @matt_fender , I basically just draped turf dug up from the lawn over the edges into the pond. I left a fair amount of overlap to try and stop the water wicking out too much. It loses a bit, not sure if any more than it would do from normal evaporation though, but now the grass has grown a matt of roots over the liner, it can drop by about 8 or 9 inches and you still can't see the liner. My lawn is hardly a cricket pitch, so all sorts of wildflowers (ie weeds) crop up along the egdes. I did plant a selection of mainly natives as well, probably much the same as you have gone for. Theres a (lengthy) thread if you want more detail https://forum.gardenersworld.com/discussion/1011306/building-a-wildlife-pond/p1
Thanks @WonkyWomble, yep we are really pleased with it. Id been itching for one for years so as soon as our youngest hit 5 (the age my wife would allow me to have one at) I got digging! Last year we got given some tadpoles, lots of those made it to frogulthood, we had newts later in the year, this year we had our own frogspawn, and its those tadpoles that have gone awol!
Thanks @Jellyfire. I think patience is the key, something that is sometimes in short supply! I didn't do the turf method (also saw that recommended elsewhere) because I was sowing the wildflowers around at the same time. Of course without root mass it is impossible to "balance" soil around the edges but I have lined them with hessian which I hope will provide a bit of grip - this has its own issues with water wicking out though, as I have discovered.
Ha, I hear you, patience isn't one of my virtues either!
I was considering hessian too, I think once a few plants take proper hold in it it will work perfectly. Its hard to know what is down to just evaporation and what is wicking though, especially with the lack of rainfall over the last year. Overall I think I probably lose more water than I would, but not enough to make it a big issue.
Whatever you plant there will grow like crazy once they get going, and the wildlife absolutely loves it. Thats the place to be for frogs in ours.
BTW Once youre meadow area gets growing well, you'll be able to lift little squares of turf and dot them anywhere you want. I can happily cut a couple of square feet out of the middle now, and the gap will fill in very quickly from all the seeds that are presumably lying around in there. (That piece of turf is then essentially what you can buy from the wildflower turf suppliers for about forty quid per square metre). Ive managed to about double the size of mine by doing this, and pop them under hedge and things where something or other will usually start growing happily. I also popped a few along the pond edges.
Good idea on lifting turf - perhaps I can just lift and slide the stuff nearest the pond over once the roots have knitted up. I did look into the meadowmat - baulked at the price, even for just the 20m2 or so we would have needed (I think it was over £400). It does look good though, but then I think there is also a satisfaction to be had from starting from scratch.
Same here, the meadowmat sounds appealing when you first consider it, but the price differnce to seed is vast, and you still need to prepare the ground to a degree, and thats the hard bit really so theres not a huge amount to be gained. I would think that shifting it over is do-able, as long as you havent got anything with deep tap roots. On my wildflowers the roots rarely go down beyond 4 or 5 inches, and as long as you keep it well watered for the first few weeks I havent had any problems moving it about
Well it's been a while but the pond is coming along nicely! I spotted a pond skater earlier, photo below! Everything is growing well in the pond and bog garden too
A great day yesterday in the garden and my little pond was visited firstly by a lovely little blue damsel fly and then later on, two red damsel flies to lay their eggs!
Here is my pond that we dug last year. My soil is very heavy clay so I don't even have a liner!
It loses a little water during dry spells but it doesn't be long going back up to the overflow level. Interestingly you can see that I'm using old clay drainage pipes for the overflow; we found them when we dug the pond!!
It backs on to my wild, really wet, area so I'll let that area do it's stuff.
The pond is full of tadpoles (I took the spawn from a family member's pond) but I guess I could do with more plants in the pond. I did throw a few pieces of frobgit into the pond last year, but they seem to have disappeared.
Posts
Thanks @WonkyWomble, yep we are really pleased with it. Id been itching for one for years so as soon as our youngest hit 5 (the age my wife would allow me to have one at) I got digging!
Last year we got given some tadpoles, lots of those made it to frogulthood, we had newts later in the year, this year we had our own frogspawn, and its those tadpoles that have gone awol!
I was considering hessian too, I think once a few plants take proper hold in it it will work perfectly.
Its hard to know what is down to just evaporation and what is wicking though, especially with the lack of rainfall over the last year. Overall I think I probably lose more water than I would, but not enough to make it a big issue.
Whatever you plant there will grow like crazy once they get going, and the wildlife absolutely loves it. Thats the place to be for frogs in ours.
BTW Once youre meadow area gets growing well, you'll be able to lift little squares of turf and dot them anywhere you want. I can happily cut a couple of square feet out of the middle now, and the gap will fill in very quickly from all the seeds that are presumably lying around in there. (That piece of turf is then essentially what you can buy from the wildflower turf suppliers for about forty quid per square metre). Ive managed to about double the size of mine by doing this, and pop them under hedge and things where something or other will usually start growing happily. I also popped a few along the pond edges.
I would think that shifting it over is do-able, as long as you havent got anything with deep tap roots. On my wildflowers the roots rarely go down beyond 4 or 5 inches, and as long as you keep it well watered for the first few weeks I havent had any problems moving it about
(For some reason this posted before the photos)