Pond life

As mentioned we’re creating a pond at the moment, turning a patch of scrubby garden non-entity into a nice little water feature and, potentially, home to the occasional newts and frogs that visit our garden. So far it’s occupied the best part of the last two weekends and it feels like it’s taking a very long time to come together. There are a number of learning points emerging from this exercise:

1) Pond liner is composed of purest evil and refuses to lie snugly in a hole no matter which way you fold it.

2) Swearing at pond liner accomplishes little but feels good.

3) Pebbles may lie there blinking sweetly at you in a Miyazaki-type way, but no matter how many times you wash them they’ll still turn your water a muddy brown colour.

4) My back still hasn’t recovered from going “oh bugger-aieee-twang!” last year.

5) Water simply can’t take a hint, even when you patiently explain where you need it to go.

6) Ow, my back. This one is worth mentioning twice.

So far we’ve taken this:

And created this work in progress:

There’s still quite a way to go, obviously. The water level in the pond will be much higher, and the upper stream still needs to be finished and covered in pebbles. Once that’s done we should end up with a series of linked pools leading to the pond which Janet can plant-up with her various marginal plants. It should look nice all the time, and have the added benefit of a little stream running from pool to pool when we use the pump.

The observant among you will have noticed that the pond is: tiny; steep-sided; in shade; and under a bamboo tree. These are not necessarily desirable things in a pond. On the other hand we had nowhere else to put it so we’re hoping it’ll do okay.

During construction we’ve discovered a couple of newts snuggling under nearby stones and we’re hoping that they may decide to move in, once the oxygenating plants are properly established. The only downside is that the pond wasn’t really designed for wildlife so we’ll need to make sure that the pump isn’t going to suck in the poor little things. At the moment the plan is to cover the pump with an upturned aquatic plant pot with a mesh small enough to stop a hapless newt from being pulled to its newty doom.

More pictures as and when we get the thing finished.