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Updated
11/09/05
Summer 2005 - We have a pond!
Another busy summer for the Everett household. This all stems from our garden project in 2003 wen we enlarged and turfed the garden. During this period we had a couple of mini diggers on site and after much alcohol I suggested to my brother that I might like a pond. Half an hour later there was a big pile of earth on one side of the garden and a huge hole on the other side. Two years later and we have finally found the budget and the time to finish it off.
As you can see, the "pond" was more of a muddy pit full of weeds. An interesting feature for the local wildlife, but not very pretty. Steph put in lots of effort to clear dead leaves, weeds and beer cans out before we could commence the final re-shaping. We pulled out dozens of flints and stones and move tonnes of earth. We then checked the level all the way round and added soil where needed so that the water didn't run out of one side!
The next task was to enlist the help of my friend Simon, and between us we spread two tonnes of soft sand across the base of the pond to help protect the liner. Now apparently you can go and buy a special pond underlay, but I have it on good authority (from some bloke down the pub) that old carpet does a similar job. To this end we managed to acquire several large pieces of carpet to use as underlay.
Laying the liner was damned hard work. I never realised how heavy a piece of rubber could be! It's a 1mm butyl liner that is about 35 foot by 25 foot in size. It took me two evenings to get it laid correctly and even then I wasn't completely happy with it. Still, it went down OK in the end and it didn't leak. It takes forever to fill though; something like 7 hours! I did a rough calculation of the volume and it came out to approximately 7500 gallons (give or take a few hundred). That's a lot of beer.
Having successfully filled the pond I decided to treat the water with a chemical to remove all the junk the waterboard puts in to protect us. This is the reason the water looks milky in these pictures. We then got on with the next stage of the project, which was to build a rockery with a waterfall down one side. Yet again we found ourselves carting more barrow loads of earth and rock to build up the rockery. We then formed the waterfall shape and lined that with soft sand and an off cut from the main pond liner. You will notice in the last pictures of this section that the pond is half empty. That was because I set the pump up incorrectly for the water fall and managed to pump the entire contents of the pond across the garden. Not clever, but easily resolved. The garden will not need watering for a while either!
Having resolved the minor technical issues with the waterfall, we then proceeded to take lots of trips to aquatics centres and garden centres. With the help of Mum and Phil we have begun to develop the rockery, waterfall and the area around the pond. The "plan" (if there ever was one) is to have a pebble beach and bog garden in front of the rockery, with lots of plants hanging down in to the water along the back near the retaining wall. I will probably hang some more baskets off the side of the decking to hide the liner where it is visible under one edge. You can also see that we have added posts and rope to stop people falling in to the pond and I have started to lay a small patio area.
We are very pleased with what we have achieved in such a short time (3 weekends). It has transformed what was a very tatty area. We are well aware that there is a lot of planting and finishing to do, but that is the fun stuff. It may well take us another six or eight months to get the pond as we really want it, but budget permitting, we will get there eventually. We are still undecided on the issue of fish. Unfortunately having two delightful little cats means that this could be a problem. I suspect that we will try it, but I have a horrible feeling that we will come home from work to find the fish on the lounge carpet and not in the pond. I will let you know what happens.
As always, many thanks to all those involved with this project - Simon (my brother) for digging the hole, Mark (his boss) for advice and encouragement, Simon R. for helping finish the profiling of the pond, Mum and Phil for advice and planting. Oh, and my bank manager . . .
Relevant links -
www.swallowaquatics.co.uk
www.heavertropics.co.uk
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