Clarenly
New Member
Hi,
I'm new here and to ponds! I think I've bitten off more that I can chew so have come for some advice.
During a week off at the beginning of February I dug a pond, I'd fancied a simple wildlife pond for a while but hadn't had the spare time until then, so I'd thought about it idly right up until I found myself buying a spade! Its about 2 foot deep at the deep end with a large 1 ft deep shelf, its roughly 1metre long and 3/4 metres wide, I'd collected rainwater all through thee proceeding autumn and winter and was able to fill it 3/4 full before the end of my week off. 2 sides of liner are dug in with some mossy turf holding the edges in, one side is dug in to a little bog garden and I'm planning to dig in the remaining edge as a bog garden too, but life snuck up on me and I've to do this by increments. I've left a "hump" all the way round to separate the bog from the pond, I'm hoping the moss and bog plants will eventually grow over the exposed liner. Its been too cold to add plants yet so its just water with some gravel in the short end to help passing wildlife get out if they fall in. The rain over the last few weeks has topped it all the way up and the bog is delightfully boggy already!
My main concern is over the time its been sitting there earth has fallen or been washed in, not huge amounts but a fine dusting over part of the deep end, the water is looking a tad brown which makes me worry its all out of balance. I'm hoping to get some oxygenating plants asap now its warmer but I don't know if they will survive long enough to do their work if my water has already gone wrong? Also, can I add my shallow water marginals before my deep water oxygenator has done its work? I want something tall to pop out in the shallow end and I want to put in something like frig bit for surface coverage, I want all native!
At the moment its quite shady, in the summer it has a lot of sun, with dappled shade from a near by bush, but when the sun is low in the winter the shadow from the fence covers most of it. I do not plan on adding fish, this pond is for passerbys only - I'd love to get some frogs/toads/newts turn up at some point but I'm not planning on adding any living creature that doesn't find their way there themselves. I have no filter, I want nature to look after the pond herself .
Any advice greatly received! All my google searches bring up results about filters and koi which doesn't help at all!
I'm new here and to ponds! I think I've bitten off more that I can chew so have come for some advice.
During a week off at the beginning of February I dug a pond, I'd fancied a simple wildlife pond for a while but hadn't had the spare time until then, so I'd thought about it idly right up until I found myself buying a spade! Its about 2 foot deep at the deep end with a large 1 ft deep shelf, its roughly 1metre long and 3/4 metres wide, I'd collected rainwater all through thee proceeding autumn and winter and was able to fill it 3/4 full before the end of my week off. 2 sides of liner are dug in with some mossy turf holding the edges in, one side is dug in to a little bog garden and I'm planning to dig in the remaining edge as a bog garden too, but life snuck up on me and I've to do this by increments. I've left a "hump" all the way round to separate the bog from the pond, I'm hoping the moss and bog plants will eventually grow over the exposed liner. Its been too cold to add plants yet so its just water with some gravel in the short end to help passing wildlife get out if they fall in. The rain over the last few weeks has topped it all the way up and the bog is delightfully boggy already!
My main concern is over the time its been sitting there earth has fallen or been washed in, not huge amounts but a fine dusting over part of the deep end, the water is looking a tad brown which makes me worry its all out of balance. I'm hoping to get some oxygenating plants asap now its warmer but I don't know if they will survive long enough to do their work if my water has already gone wrong? Also, can I add my shallow water marginals before my deep water oxygenator has done its work? I want something tall to pop out in the shallow end and I want to put in something like frig bit for surface coverage, I want all native!
At the moment its quite shady, in the summer it has a lot of sun, with dappled shade from a near by bush, but when the sun is low in the winter the shadow from the fence covers most of it. I do not plan on adding fish, this pond is for passerbys only - I'd love to get some frogs/toads/newts turn up at some point but I'm not planning on adding any living creature that doesn't find their way there themselves. I have no filter, I want nature to look after the pond herself .
Any advice greatly received! All my google searches bring up results about filters and koi which doesn't help at all!
