Our Wildlife Pond Story

Our wild life Story - Podcast

In a corner of our semi-wild garden is a new thriving habitat, a wildlife pond.

In 2020 we needed soil, so we dug out good topsoil from an area at the back of the garden until we found a thick claylike layer which is called marl. We continued to excavate the good stuff before dumping in not such good soil from around the garden and leaves until the hole was barely visible after the winter.

In 2021, I looked at the area and decided to dig again, finding more good soil, and creating a hole, but this time I had nothing to put back in. I looked at this hole and saw it’s potential to be a new habitat in the garden. A wildlife pond.

I had a shape and size in mind, and Martin agreed it would be a good use of the space. We paced it out, ensuring there was space to the left under the trees as we didn’t want too many leaves falling in and clogging it up in the autumn. I know lots of people say not to make a pond by deciduous trees, but this was the best place in the garden for a pond. The trees mean that there will be sun in the morning and shade in the afternoon, which seemed to be the perfect mix for a small wild pond, and ponds in woodland are surrounded by trees and yet sustain much life. This was not going to be an ornamental pond with goldfish in it after all.

We discussed the idea of adding fish, but I wanted to see what happened, how the wildlife evolved. If fish arrive as eggs on plants or via a bird then great, but I didn’t want to buy fish as this would mean more care and with our freezing winters could cause problems. I wanted to keep it simple.

I used old tiles to mark a rough edge and began soil moving again, grinning as I realised I was doing more digging than ever whilst reading about and trying to put into practice the no-dig garden method in as many areas of the garden as possible.

It was a gradual dig as the soil was tough, but I enjoyed it. There wasn’t enough soil at the back to make an edge because I’d dug that out the year before and put it on the garden. The pond would need a solid edge and space for rocks, so I moved soil from one end of the pond to the other, creating a thicker space at the back by the fence. It was easy to stick and stamp and kick into place when it was wet, and I was happy with the results even if my back protested at times. I wonder now if I should have made a wider space at the back, but never mind, its okay.

I found lots of roots and was worried about our beautiful old apple tree. I didn’t want to cause it harm or stress, so it was time to do some research. Luckily, most of the roots were from the neighbour’s hedge, a dead ash tree, and the few that were probably apple tree roots were far enough from the tree to be okay to cut. They were tough and I apologised as I chopped through them. Crazy woman that I am.

When my body needed a rest from digging, I researched wildlife ponds, the depth and size they needed to be, and Martin helped me measure it. This was tricky as the land slopes and the back of the pond was considerable higher than the front. It made the decision of where to put the shallow end easy but the deep wasn’t deep enough for creatures to survive the winter.

I dug more, using the marl to shore up the edges. It was harder now as I wasn’t digging but scraping the top from the bedrock, this weird soft flaky rock that our house is built on. I tried not to think of how easy it is to scrape away, after all, the house has been standing strong for hundreds of years.

It was slow work and hard on the wrists, so I wore wrist supports to prevent problems and limited the time I scrapped. I enjoyed being in the garden, being physically active and making something that I was sure would create a lovely habitat for creatures who could not live in the garden at that moment. We did have a tiny pond, an old hip bath. It used to be our dog’s outdoor cooling pool, but she has been gone for many years and we added stones to the edge to create a pond, but it was too tiny for much to survive in it, especially when it froze in the winter.

The shape of the deep part of the new pond was determined by the bedrock density and root finding, it was not a large deep space but the depth was eventually there.

Once again we measured and this time we were satisfied it was deep enough even allowing for the layers of liner we would use. I thought about using clay to line the pond but it’s not easy to find here and is hard work to puddle, and with our freezing winter and hot summers I was worried about its sustainability.

Now the deep and shallow existed, and the pond had a shape, I made shelving for plants and different depths for creatures. With hindsight I should’ve researched plants at this time and made the shelves a little wider, as we had some problems when putting plants in, but it works as it is so that’s okay. We live and learn as we go.

By the end of June, it was looking good, and we spent time picking out small sharp stones and smoothing the sides before buying the liner. If this had been a normal summer we’d have waited, but it was a cold wet June with plenty of rain so filling the pond was not a water concern.

We searched locally but, in the end, we had to buy online. It didn’t take long to come, and I was very excited. The liner was heavy though.

At the start of July, we were ready to put in the liner. I was excited and anxious, wondering if it was all going to work okay. The underlay was easy to cut, fit and shape, but I just couldn’t understand how the large thick liner was going to work. I trusted Martin, he’d done this before on a larger and simpler shaped pond, but he’d done it.

I was right to trust him and although it was heavy and unwieldy the liner fit. Our measuring was good, we’d erred on the larger side so had lots of offcuts which may be used to make some smaller ponds elsewhere in the garden. There were lots of creases and overlaps, but I was sure that this would only add habitats for beasties.

Once the liner was in the pond looked small and not how I’d imagined it. It was time to add water.

We dragged the hose up the garden and turned on the water, and as it filled with our local mountain spring water the liner snuggled into place and the size and shape of the garden’s new addition was revealed. It was warm enough for some water antics and we were soon as wet as if we’d sat in the pond. It didn’t take long to fill, and I was so very proud of this watery hole.

We were happy. The pond looked super good. Very clean and devoid of life though.

We’d bought a small solar pump with a water fountain and rigged this up too. The sound of the fountain was pretty and soothing.

We lay hessian around the edges for a few reasons, to keep the liner from being damaged by the sun, to cover the blackness of the liner at the edges, to provide something for creatures to climb up out of the water on, and a surface for plants to clamber down. It looked good. We weighed the hessian down with roof tiles and rocks. Edging the pond would be a slower process.

We added gravel and stones to the shallow end and an overhanging rock. It would be easy for any creature that happened to fall in accidentally to get back out again.

In August, I ordered some pond plants, aerators, a hardy miniature lily, some water iris and a stripey reed as well as a tuft of grass and some water mint, and a weird plant that eats mosquito larvae in the water. It floats on the top, supposedly dropping seed pods to the bottom in the winter and then reappearing when the water warms.

We could see it attracting the wriggling wee beasties soon after it was in. We added a few rocks on the back corner, some mosses, and ferns and voila, that part of the pond looked like it had been established for years.

We dug a channel from the shallow end, placed a half pipe, filled it with gravel and then covered it with soil. The drainage for the overflow into the garden. We’d had plenty of rain so this was needed. It worked well.

We added some more rocks, moss, and plants, slowly edging one side.

We placed cardboard around the pond and covered the area under the trees with bark. It looked pretty, stopped grass from growing and provided habitat for small beasties, which the blackbirds searched for all through the winter, flicking the bark aside, but none went in the pond.

Leaves fell and we scooped loads off the top using a child’s fishing net. It worked well. We allowed some leaves to remain, to start creating sediment at the bottom and we saw the first pond skater.

One day I was sitting by the pond reading when a dragonfly came to visit, it flew over the water eating lots of flies, zigzagging and sometimes coming close to me. Its iridescent body shone green in the sunlight. Wonderful. I saw it many times after that and even saw it on one of the plants. Fingers crossed it had laid some eggs.

Something decided to dig up the hessian and some of the moss one night, we don’t know if it was cat or fox or maybe a pine martin, we did find the scat of a pine martin and the scent of a fox lingered on the air one morning.

The birds were frequent visitors, stopping for a quick wash or drink.

Although it was a newly hatched pond it was already being used by the wildlife and every time I walked to my hut to write I’d look at our pond and smile. Water is special.

Then winter arrived and snow surrounded the pond in November, making it look smaller and darker. We removed the top of the fountain but left the pipe under the surface so water would continue to move. It worked well as when the surface froze there was always a thinner space which often melted in the sun to create a hole in the ice for birds to drink from.

I loved the patterns from ice that froze, melted slightly, and refroze. Bubbles were captured and textures formed by the slight movement created by the solar powered pump.

When the pond unfroze, I would hear birds splashing and bathing in the shallow end. From my writing hut I could just see them, sometimes it was the proud blackbird, other times two magpies taking it in turns to bathe, and often the sparrows lined up for a chance to wash away winter blues.

This year, 2022, we left the garden for six weeks from the end of February to the start of April and while we were away, we had visitors to the pond.

Our son sent us a photo and we couldn’t believe what we saw. In two plant baskets were large balls of black dotted jelly. Frogspawn. We were delighted and kept our fingers crossed as we watched the weather report of a temperature plummet and minus seven at night.

Would they freeze or would they still be there when we got home?

We laughed when we peered into the pond and my heart sang with delight.

It was teeming with wriggling black tadpoles. Hundreds of them clinging to the sides, eating the jelly from their eggs, and swimming over the small rocks at the shallow end.

‘What’s that?’ Martin pointed to something small, round and dark moving across the black liner. He peered closer. ‘It’s a snail.’

I looked down on my side of the pond, and there they were.

Once we’d seen one, we saw loads, all different sizes but all the same shape. Common pond snails. Where they had come from, we had no idea, maybe on a bird’s feet when they bathed, maybe the frogs carried snail eggs on their legs from wherever they came from. However they arrived we were mighty glad to see them, they will clean the pond for us.

‘Oh, wait, what was that? Was it a small fish?’

Something darted from one plant to another, and it wasn’t a tadpole. We looked closer and saw several. They weren’t fish but a weird looking long bodied creature with lots of legs and three tails.

A look on the internet revealed they were damsel fly nymphs. Brilliant.

Over the next few days, we observed small round creatures that darted across under the water, some black, and some green. These were probably water mites. Welcome to your new home little ones.

We watched as a host of pond skaters were having a wonderful time darting on the surface, making the pond twinkle and ripple as their clever feet do not break the surface tension.

I saw three black creatures zoom to the surface for a moment and then go straight back down, these were whirligig beetles.

We decided not to replace the fountain part of the solar pump as the water pushing up was more natural, it reminded us of a natural spring effect, and the tadpoles seemed to delight in riding the current. They would swim into it, be propelled to the surface and then swim back for another go. Funny.

We continue to pond watch and have seen tadpoles eating nymphs and mosquito larvae and admired the delightful baby pond snails as they use the underside of the surface tension to move across the pond. The twist their bodies and slide across upside down until coming into contact with a leaf or rock, then they sucker on and turn right side up and continue their foraging on the sides of the pond. I never knew they did this. Fascinating.

What a joy a wildlife pond is.

We are happy it is home to so much life, in a short space of time, and wonder what we will see next.

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