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Pond advice

RustyleavesRustyleaves Posts: 21
in Problem solving
Hi,
When we moved in to our place, there was an old decent sized pond in the garden. I've never had a pond before so to be honest haven't really a clue where to start with maintenance. The centre has a lot of sedge-like grass and then there's a couple of other things around that. I really want to keep the pond as there's so much wildlife that loves it but there is a fair bit of maybe silt and the water looks brownish. There's also been a fair amount of plants, possibly weeds quickly covering the remaining surface.

If anyone has any advice for where to begin with looking after a pond or whether it needs something more radical or not, I'd appreciate it!
Thanks
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  • RustyleavesRustyleaves Posts: 21
    Sorry, had a look and this seems to be the only picture I can find, I'll have to get a better shot tomorrow
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    Hi @Rustyleaves. A pond is a great asset. I assume it's a preformed one - looking at your photo. That's fine, but it does look as if it could do with a clear out and a bit of renovation, and a top up - the water level looks low. It's difficult to see the size, and a small pond is trickier than a bigger one, but all ponds are useful. Birds, and other wildlife,  will drink and bathe, and if you can create really shallow areas insects will drink too. If you're lucky, you'll get dragon or damselflies laying eggs etc. All lovely.  :)
    It's probably not the best time to do it, but if you have containers that you can move the water into, that's a good approach, and you can then remove some of the stuff at the bottom.  There does look like some sedges and bits of grass seeded in at the edges, or similar, and the floating stuff  [duckweed] can be a nuisance. Varying heights and types of plants are beneficial, and you can add those as you go along, and hopefully get it in good shape over summer.  
    Some silt and debris in a pond is normal, and necessary for all sorts of insect life and plants, but it could probably do with a clear out, and a fresh start. It will mean a loss of some wildlife initially, but some appropriate planting, and some oxygen in it will really benefit everything. Wildlife needs a safe entrance and exit, so if the sides are all vertical, some rocks, logs or similar stacked in one end will help - a ladder of sorts. 
    Any new photos you can add will help with advice though.  :)
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • RedwingRedwing Posts: 1,511
    How big is it?  More pictures would be helpful, also closeups of plants for identification.  It does look very overcrowded and probably needs a clean out.  There are bound to be lots of invertebrates in there, maybe even newts and/or frogs. 
    Based in Sussex, I garden to encourage as many birds to my garden as possible.
  • RustyleavesRustyleaves Posts: 21
    Right I've got a couple better pics now. It's about 1.5m by 2.5m I reckon. Since we moved in, we've seen many dragon flies, loads of different kinds of insects that I do not know the names of, a newt and a small frog. So I definitely want to keep it to encourage the wildlife  and learn to look after it, it's just knowing where to even begin without ruining it! Thanks for your help :smile:
  • JellyfireJellyfire Posts: 1,139
    edited May 2022
    Its great that you already have plenty of wildlife in there. To be honest the wildlife doesn't care too much what it looks like, but presuming you do it should be fairly straightforward get it much nicer looking for you to view it.  At the moment you have all the plants in the middle (sedge or maybe irises and marsh marigold by the look of it). All you need to do basically is get some of that sedge (the grassy one) out and redistribute it where you want it. It would be much better looking if you took it from the centre and put some clumps of it on that ledge around the edges instead. This would help hide the edges, along with providing some good exit and entry points for the wildlife. 

    At the moment, with the water level so low, it may be that you have newts and frogs in there that can't get out (which they will need to). They spend much of their time on land. 

    The plants may have originally been in pond baskets but are very probably just rooted on the bottom of the pond now. It will be a messy and smelly business, but I would basically just pull them out with their roots, then break them into smaller clumps.

    You could then plant them in pond baskets (or plantpots with lots of holes punched into them), that will help keep them from spreading too much. Alternatively you could just sit them directly onto the ledge. That is the quickest/easiest/cheapest way, but it will mean having to keep them under control by removing some once or twice a year. 

    Anything you do take out will very likely be jam packed with pond life, so ideally you should check for any tadpoles, young amphibians and pop them back in. If you have any kind of mesh that you could put over the pond and pop them on that then any insects etc will fall back into the pond. Failing that just leave them slightly overhanging the pond  edge overnight and most will find their way back in. 

    At least until you have plants that straddle the water and ground outside then should add something that animals can use to climb out. A couple of old logs, or even some bricks or stones on the ledge to provide a ramp. if a hedgehog or something falls in there is now way of escape for it at present.

    Once you've done your maintenance then it really needs topping up to the brim. All the disturbance will make it very brown and cloudy of while, but it should settle in a few days. 

    Once all that is done, if you want to pretty it up, then some plants around the outside edge to overhang the water and hide the plastic edges would make the world of difference. 

    It will look much better in no time at all with a bit of TLC, then you will have a much clearer picture of whether you want to add your own plants anything 

  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    As tempting as it is to "jump right in" I might suggest leaving it until winter, yes I know it'll be freezing and horrible, but less disruption for wildlife.
    In the mean time I'd top the level up, from a water butt if possible , or slowly, a bit each day with tap water and let things get on with this summer.
    Devon.
  • JellyfireJellyfire Posts: 1,139
    You have more patience than me @Hostafan1! 
    If you do take that approach @Rustyleaves then you should definitely add some way of exiting the pond asap, and yes adding more water 
  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    Jellyfire said:
    You have more patience than me @Hostafan1! 
    If you do take that approach @Rustyleaves then you should definitely add some way of exiting the pond asap, and yes adding more water 
    maybe I'm just lazy, or have a big enough list of stuff to do already.  o:)
    Devon.
  • RustyleavesRustyleaves Posts: 21
    Thanks, I think I'm probably with you @jellyfire, it'll be hard to resist doing something! Maybe I'll see if I can just separate some of the plants at one end for now and get some wildlife exits sorted. The whole garden was wildly overgrown and then cut severely back and the earth all churned up when we bought it so it's been a never ending battle with which weed is going to take over, so I've got that to keep me busy for now :/

    Should I be removing some of the duckweed? 
    Anyone got any recommendations or ideas for the overhanging water edge plants for the future?

    Thanks so much guys :smile:
  • JellyfireJellyfire Posts: 1,139
    Getting rid of the duckweed in my experience is either with a treatment, or an ongoing use of a net. I try to avoid using any chemicals in the garden so I use the net approach, it only take a few minutes every couple of weeks, but you can never really eradicate it that way. As you don't appear to have any floating plants such as lilies etc, the duckweed will help shade the water and keep it from going pea soup green, so Id just buy a Childs fishing net and use that myself. 

    If you do it now you will inevitably disturb and lose some insect life, but I take the view that its inevitable with an artificial pond, whatever time of year you do it, and overall you are adding much more than you are harming by having a pond.

    For the edges any kind of low growing spreaders would do a good job, but it depends on what kind of soil you have, how dry, how much sun etc? Don't be fooled into thinking that moisture loving plants will thrive there just because they are next to the pond
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