Kitchen Garden Forum

I had some money for my birthday so I decided to get a pond liner and underlay off the internet, it arrived the other day, so whilst that is in quarantine at the back of the greenhouse I have started digging.
First I had to remove the roots from two old apple trees that I felled last autumn, now the shallow part is being dug out, it will be 2 metres by 3 metres and 300mm deep with a deeper centre channel.

I know how difficulyt it is digging through roots Tiger.
And the bonus is you get some soil for use elsewhere!

Where is the soil going, Tigerburnie?
Will be a nice feature in the garden when done...no fishing, mind.

Thanks guys, a lot of the top soil has gone into the adjacent raised beds as a top dressing and the rest on the tattie bed. I had a pond as a child stocked with fish and caught my two younger brothers fishing in it......pests they were. I do not intend to add fish in this, hoping the Toad in the greenhouse finds a use for it and maybe some newts would be nice. I shall plant it with native plants and hope to bring a few more pollinators into the veg patch.

You'll need a good underliner with those roots - wife fancy a new carpet?

300mm is mighty shallow, tigerburnie. It could freeze solid over winter and kill any overwintering wildlife in it. Could you not have a deeper part in it with shallower edges? Toads would not breed in it, they prefer deeper water, though frogs will, but as young frogs often overwinter in the pond rather than on land, they could be killed in a hard frost.

I'm removing most of them Geoff, the liner comes with under lay, but that far vertical wall will have additional protection before the liner goes in. The deeper channel in the centre will have our old bath tub in it to help protect the liner from any roots still alive, they should be all dead as the three apple trees that made those roots have been felled.
Monika, I got the details for the pond from our local wildlife trust for depths, the 300mm(1 foot) edges will have basket planters with marginal wetland plants, the 1 metre(3 foot) middle bit should accommodate most stuff over winter I'm told. There will be wood piles and rock piles adjacent for hibernation spots.

That sounds fine then, tigerburnie. Goods luck!

Further progress, I have shortened to length to 7 feet but kept the depths the same and its a bit wider, so the volume of water is probably the same.
Final digging prior to the underlay and liner going in...………..


Then the liner went in............


Nearly full.....I'm done in now lol.

You don't hang about, do you, Tigerburnie..

I am feeling muscles I forgot I'd got just now lol.

That,s pretty fast working. Well done! You should have a nice new feature to enjoy in your garden if the lockdown continues in some form until the end of summer!
When I put a mini pond in our garden some years ago newts just appeared from nowhere which astonished me as I had no idea they could exist in a garden without water and no idea where they had come from.

Well done, excellent progress.

I have found newts and toads in my garden, I next need to buy some plants but as the garden centres are out of bounds I shall see what is available on the internet. I am not expecting a lot of wildlife in the first year, so I am going to be doing a lot of watching.

As an update, a water beetle(might be a small corixa water boatman) has moved in already and I haven't got any plants arrived yet!