Have used Honeysome Aquatics for my pond plants. Good value and good service. Small bare rooted plants that establish well. They are, however closing this year so get in quick.
Just trying to remember where we got our sticklebacks from, thinking it was somewhere in or near Romsey - many years ago now, but maybe it's somewhere near you, Steve.
Also your local (Hampshire) Wildlife Trust should have information about planting wildlife ponds, there are native plants that do better in certain areas.
NB I got the idea from a wonderful series of videos on Youtube of a guy building a large pond at a school in the North East - he had some great ideas to attract all kinds of creatures but didn't mention too much about plants. (At least I thought it was a big pond - I seem to have ended up with a bigger one!)
We saw that same video series when planning our pond and thought it was very helpful, but I agree there wasn't a lot of mention on plants. It did give us the idea of a hibernaculum next to the pond though, which we've incorporated with a mini rockery area.
I would highly recommend Devon Pond Plants - excellent value plants and run by David Kerr who has always been very helpful with any query I've had. Here is a photo of how the plants are looking now (planted in the Autumn):
Bottom centre working round clockwise they are:
Ranunculus flammula (Lesser Spearwort)
Caltha palustris (Marsh Marigold)
Lythrum salicaria (Purple Loosestrife)
Butomus umbellatus (Flowering Rush)
Mentha aquatica (Water Mint)
Iris Versicolour Rowden Cadenza (Iris)
All of the above are natives except for the Iris Versicolour. I decided against including the native Yellow Flag Iris for my pond as I'd heard it can be invasive, and after the various Iris Versicolours were featured on an episode of Gardeners World last year I decided to go for one of those instead.
Devon Pond Plants will also send Duckweed (Lemna) for free with your order if you request it. Some people prefer to avoid this but I like the look of it so decided to get some despite my pond being small. I'm just waiting for my second batch of plants from them which I'm hoping will arrive at the end of the week - the final plants for in the pond and around the edges.
I've also used Puddle Pond Plants recently trying to source hornwort and Annette from there was very helpful too - just a little more expensive. I'm hoping these will also arrive by the end of the week, but I was told each bunch is a generous handful.
I would also highly recommend Jenny Steel's (small) book Wildlife Ponds as this gives some good ideas for native plants to include, and what not to include - or what is best for a large pond. I also found the following online booklet helpful too (Froglife's Just Add Water):
I'm sure you're going to have so much fun adding the planting and waiting for the creatures to arrive. I'll definitely be checking back for progress photos.
Hi, my pond is about that size, and now 3 years old. Mine was dug for wildlife, and i dont treat it as a managed environment like a garden pond. I researched it and thought the best thing i could add to it was nothing at all.
I'm going to disagree with others and say you can have fish. In a pond that size, there's still plenty of wildlife, especially if you feed them. At my last house we inherited a very large, established pond that had two very large Koi and several Golden Orfe (and a random trout that must have come in with a plant at some time) - until someone stole them. Tons of wildlife in the pond. Management is the key factor.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I'd leave the fish out. Sticklebacks might be tiny, but they breed rapidly to a high population density and do reduce the wildlife value. A pond that size could potentially be very good for great crested newts if they are anywhere nearby - these are particularly susceptible to fish predation because the larvae swim out in mid-water. Minnows are more river fish.
I'd go easy on the lilies as well - the more vigorous types have a tendency to take over and although the flowers are attractive their wildlife value isn't that great - unmanaged you can end up with large areas of the surface covered and submerged plants shaded out.
A major negative of your pond is that the edges look very steep and it seems to completely lack any shallow water. 0.5 m is extremely deep for the large number of species (i.e. most pondlife) that live around the margins.
Posts
Oh my lord Steve you'll come home on day and find people sailing in that!
Have used Honeysome Aquatics for my pond plants. Good value and good service. Small bare rooted plants that establish well. They are, however closing this year so get in quick.
Ahhh! Stuff of my OHs dreams a 1.5 tonne digger
Just trying to remember where we got our sticklebacks from, thinking it was somewhere in or near Romsey - many years ago now, but maybe it's somewhere near you, Steve.
Also your local (Hampshire) Wildlife Trust should have information about planting wildlife ponds, there are native plants that do better in certain areas.
We saw that same video series when planning our pond and thought it was very helpful, but I agree there wasn't a lot of mention on plants. It did give us the idea of a hibernaculum next to the pond though, which we've incorporated with a mini rockery area.
I would highly recommend Devon Pond Plants - excellent value plants and run by David Kerr who has always been very helpful with any query I've had. Here is a photo of how the plants are looking now (planted in the Autumn):
Bottom centre working round clockwise they are:
Ranunculus flammula (Lesser Spearwort)
Caltha palustris (Marsh Marigold)
Lythrum salicaria (Purple Loosestrife)
Butomus umbellatus (Flowering Rush)
Mentha aquatica (Water Mint)
Iris Versicolour Rowden Cadenza (Iris)
All of the above are natives except for the Iris Versicolour. I decided against including the native Yellow Flag Iris for my pond as I'd heard it can be invasive, and after the various Iris Versicolours were featured on an episode of Gardeners World last year I decided to go for one of those instead.
Devon Pond Plants will also send Duckweed (Lemna) for free with your order if you request it. Some people prefer to avoid this but I like the look of it so decided to get some despite my pond being small. I'm just waiting for my second batch of plants from them which I'm hoping will arrive at the end of the week - the final plants for in the pond and around the edges.
I've also used Puddle Pond Plants recently trying to source hornwort and Annette from there was very helpful too - just a little more expensive. I'm hoping these will also arrive by the end of the week, but I was told each bunch is a generous handful.
I would also highly recommend Jenny Steel's (small) book Wildlife Ponds as this gives some good ideas for native plants to include, and what not to include - or what is best for a large pond. I also found the following online booklet helpful too (Froglife's Just Add Water):
http://www.froglife.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Froglife_JustAddWater_2011.pdf
I'm sure you're going to have so much fun adding the planting and waiting for the creatures to arrive. I'll definitely be checking back for progress photos.
Lucid
Hi, my pond is about that size, and now 3 years old. Mine was dug for wildlife, and i dont treat it as a managed environment like a garden pond. I researched it and thought the best thing i could add to it was nothing at all.
I'm going to disagree with others and say you can have fish. In a pond that size, there's still plenty of wildlife, especially if you feed them. At my last house we inherited a very large, established pond that had two very large Koi and several Golden Orfe (and a random trout that must have come in with a plant at some time) - until someone stole them. Tons of wildlife in the pond. Management is the key factor.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I'd leave the fish out. Sticklebacks might be tiny, but they breed rapidly to a high population density and do reduce the wildlife value. A pond that size could potentially be very good for great crested newts if they are anywhere nearby - these are particularly susceptible to fish predation because the larvae swim out in mid-water. Minnows are more river fish.
I'd go easy on the lilies as well - the more vigorous types have a tendency to take over and although the flowers are attractive their wildlife value isn't that great - unmanaged you can end up with large areas of the surface covered and submerged plants shaded out.
A major negative of your pond is that the edges look very steep and it seems to completely lack any shallow water. 0.5 m is extremely deep for the large number of species (i.e. most pondlife) that live around the margins.
This book is very good for wildlife pond advice: http://freshwaterhabitats.org.uk/habitats/pond/pond-book/
Steve - how is the pond looking now?
I would love to see more photos