Pond Restore 2023

 Some of you may remember, a few years ago, my heroic efforts to dig the pond in our Garden, for those that don't, imagine a project slightly smaller than the Three Gorges Dam😂,  this was just pre-blog so my efforts largely went unrecorded for posterity but an overview of the Garden at the time  can be found at the link, which has pictures of the Pond in it!

Garden 

So in the years since then, the pond has developed nicely with good numbers of Tadpoles, from our resident Frogs, Frogo and Fredo, as Margie imaginatively named them😏 which earlier this year actually made it to froglets!! Several sorts of Leech, tiny Shrimpy things, and plenty of other bugs I don't know the name of!  There were also Dragonflies sniffing around it this year, The ultimate dream, is Hobbies swooping over the Garden catching em as they emerge in their hordes!!!! Though that might seem to be optimistic I have actually recorded Hobby from the garden a couple of years ago!!!

To be honest the pond has provided us with hours of entertainment, especially the Frogs, it has also been well used by the birds for drinking and washing!! So imagine my desolation when we came down one morning to find it drained of water!!! Less than  half full!! What could of happened!!!?😢😢😢😰. Optimistically we hoped that some huge animal, Fox or Badger had used it for an ablutions frenzy, splashing it out in the process!!! We filled it up again, but sadly the next morning it was drained again!!! 😢 I was so upset, I didn't even take pics so can't do a before and after pic!! 

We decided to repair it and with the Christmas Holiday  approaching it  seemed to be the opportune time to make the repairs!  

Day 1: Removed the old liner, couldn't find an obvious hole, but it seemed quite brittle and  the underfelt was obviously soaking, so repair seemed unlikely! We also discovered in the mud at the bottom, that Fredo and Frogo had decided to over-winter in the pond!! At least it is very mild so hopefully they will be ok, the unlined hole was filled with water so we relocated them there. 

Day 2: We headed to the Garden Center to buy the new Liner and Underlay!! However it turns out that in the years since we dug the pond the price of these items has overtaken Gold in costliness😨😰😱A quick calculation and it was gonna be £170 WTF😂😱!!! We Decided to try somewhere else ending up at Maidenhead Aquatics, where it was just as pricy!!! Noooooo! I was considering filling the hole in at this point, when the very helpful and knowledgeable assistant  pointed out we could get a preformed pond liner of about the same size for 60 quid, Hurrah!😂 The downside of this and the thing I was very much hoping to avoid, was digging,😢 unfortunately the pond we chose was the wrong shape for our hole, so back on the spade for us!! Margie and I got the job done, I would like to say in perfect harmony, but Margie had some crazy ideas about how to level things up and which bit needed to be dug to level it up and got a bit tetchy when we didn't quite see eye to eye! Obviously with my nickname of Capability Evans my ability to landscape is legendary and therefore she was wrong and I was right. If she disagrees she can write her own blog😂😂😂 However by the end of the day all was harmonious again and hopefully she will start speaking to me again by the New Year😁😂. She has only just got over the mighty Leeds destroying her beloved Town !!! Which I've hardly mentioned, obvs😂!!

The Hole!!!! Note the mud!!

  

Me in action, by this time I was filling in, should be noted Margie helped with the dig, think there was slightly less earth moved than Crossrail

End of day, pond in situ, but not enough soil left over to fill in!

Day 3: Back to the Garden Center, for Bags of Top Soil, which we filled in around the Pond, we found some Snakes Head Fritillary bulbs, in the shed, which I put around the back end so hopefully will get a good display come the Spring. We had saved some Hornwort and some of the mud from the old Pond, which we put back in and we have  relocated Fredo and Frogo back to the pond so hopefully it will come back to life fairly sharpish, in the Spring!

Looks a bit devastated but will look better as the plants come up around it, we also rescued many of the rocks from the old Pond so will titivate it over the coming weeks

 

Pretty pleased with it and unlike the old pond it's fairly level!! We will get some native, plants from the Aquatics place when they come into stock and hopefully some of the old ones Water Mint and the like will reappear.  My back will probably recover in the next couple of years!! Margie also aches and pains, compounded by her injuries from taking a tumble whilst putting on her wellies, bruised arm and a graze on her elbow, she's talking Health and Safety breeches, lawsuits, the works!!! Though she obviously doesn't have a leg to stand on!! Boom Boom!!😂😁 Though seriously she is responding to treatment, I made her a cup of tea and offered to kiss it better!! 💓I know I'm practically a doctor!!😁

Good Job , well done!!!😁 I highly recommend installing a wildlife pond, it's great fun to watch the aquatic life and is very helpful to your garden wildlife!!!