Obviously every meadow needs a pond! Well maybe not. But we wanted a wet meadow, partly because everything else in our garden is so parched, partly as a contrast to the dry meadow and partly just because so many plants of wet meadows are so lovely. And ponds are obviously great anyway. There is nothing better for a garden's wildlife interest than water. Being overambitious and having a head filled with darn silly ideas I thought it woudl be good if the pond could act as a sort of reservoir which would overflow and 'flood' the meadow in winter. Yes, that's right our own flood meadow! The pond itself was made in the tried and tested 'dig an enormous hole, put down something impermeable and fill it up with water' method with a couple of additional features:
- I quite liked the idea suggested by the Wildlife Trusts of stepping the edges to create a shelf supporting the sloping pond edge. I have to say this didn't really work very well, perhaps I made the shelves too narrow or perhaps the soil was too silty, or I could blame all the evil cats which came and drank from the pond (this didn't make them evil, it was the gifts they left as payment...) but the sides collapsed in a series of mini mudslides, which was not too much of a problem apart from exposing the plastic pond liner to UV and potentially damaging it, and also looking pretty crap. We found an ingenious solution however...
- I also wanted to use the shelf on the 'north' facing side of the pond to make use of my wasted drystone walling skills and support a retaining wall for all the spoil from the pond which i hoped would also act as a habitat for ferns and other moisture loving plants in the shelter afforded them by the wall and the hedge behind it. Unfortunately I got my calculations a bit awry and the wall actually ended up facing east, so got the full blast of the morning sun, which in mid summer was pretty hot, and the few ferns I had planted were quickly scorched into oblivion. I had to revise my planting plans, and so far the only plant which has survived has been a Cistus x purpureus 'Alan Fradd', some delicate Irises which get their job done in early spring and of course the usual weeds. I think the real problem was yet again poor design and execution on my part: besides the direction the retaining wall should have had much deeper planting crevices than the ones provided. Three Dierama plants which were planted in September 2005 have not really done anything since, in spite of flowering earlier in the year. I have toyed with the idea of ripping the whole bank out and starting again...but i don't have the time. Besides the submerged part of the wall is excellent providing homes for many frogs, toads and invertebrates who would all be disturbed if I were to tear it out. And I am sure that many invertebrates find the hot slopes favourable...who knows, maybe we will get some lizards next? In the mean time I have tried another attempt with little Sempervivem spp. which may establish more readily in the Autumn and survive.
- We also wanted a dipping platform at the edge of the pond to allow us and others to enjoy the pond and its denizens close up. I initially planned to build one from scratch, but fortune favours thieves and I managed to reassign a disused recycled plastic decking section which had previously been used by my employer, Filcris Ltd, for demonstration purposes, and which looks great as well as being very effective. We have finished it off with two enormous lumps of recycled limestone (these were about to be thrown away by someone!) which we use as perches while watching frogs and damselflies and searching for The Newt.
- I aqcuired range of different pond plants from Naturescape in September 2005 including:
- Amphibious bistort - this hasn't really done very much in it's first year which is surprising since in the wild it is quite invasive. Probably just as well given the size of the pond...
- Arrowhead - this flowered well in summer 2006
- Water avens - these were planted in what became a death trap, with far too little soil only a few cm above the surface of the liner which became exposed and dried out when the water level fell in the summer. They all perished... Round 2 due to begin in 2007 with a new plant in today!
- Yellow flag iris - this grew well in 2006 but did not flower.
- Frogbit - not sure what happened to this!
- Purple loosestrife - I thought this had perished with the water avens but it had survived and flowed throughout August, inspite of being quite a small plant. England expects!
- Marsh marigold - my father had one of these in his pond and it was a raging monstrous triffid of a thing, absolutely huge! So i thought I would restrict it a tad and put it in a water plant pot about 4" in diameter. Since then it has sulked and looked quite sickly, only producing 2 flowers and moping around all summer. So this September 2006 I released it and planted it directly into the pond soil. Only time will tell...
- Spiked water milfoil - did well, doing it's oxygen thing while producing interesting little flowers above the surface.
- Cuckoo flower - sadly this went the way of the water avens. New plants just in so another attempt underway.
- Ragged robin - interesingly this survived surprisingly well with a good flowering season. and survived the subsequent summer. A real trooper!
- Flowering rush - this was the resounding superstar of the summer pondlife with loads of really incredible blooms, each one covered in more hoverflies than the last one, including a huge (2cm) hornet mimic. Excellent value which I cannot recommend enough.
- Soft rush - another lovely plant complete with subtle bright green flowers which has survived very well.
- Lesser spearwort - basically a tiny, very upright buttercup with spear like leaves, it flowered and survived in it's fragile, inconspicuous sort of way.
- White dwarf waterlily - interestingly this turned out to be dark pink rather than white. Which was fine since it was gorgeous. Didn't do much in it's first year, which is probably good since it is supposed to be a dwarf plant which won't take over the whole pond.
- The summer heat combined with a policy of not topping the pond up meant that there was a very scary drop in water levels (about 9" or 225mm), which left many plants high and dry. The ones with deep roots which could tap into the pond water survived. Others didn't. This is the way it goes and we didn't want to be dashing about wasting water, preferring to find plants that would survive The drop in water levels also exposed the liner again and we had to solve it. Finally we got some old hessian sacks for free at the stone merchants at a garden centre (interestingly the same garden centre whose water garden section had wanted extortionate amounts of money for tiny squares of very lightweight material). This was pushed into the mud, under rocks and fixed around the dipping platform, and worked a treat with plants quickly establishing in it.
- The dead zone mentioned earlier was solved with little paving stones 6" across.
- That's about it really. Pictures to follow. I want to set up a 'pond cam' but have no idea how to do this...any advice welcome! ;o)
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