The Ponds
No wildlife garden would be complete without a pond and now there are three here. When I moved in one of my first discoveries was a small pond in the front garden. It was quite well hidden with the grass reaching over it but I have always wanted to have a fish pond. When I started to clear the thick layer of leaves on the bottom off the pond I realised quickly, after 'chucking' back in countless newts and dragonfly nymphs, that this was a working ecosystem and adding goldfish would definitely not be a good move so I built another two ponds.
The Wildlife Pond
This pond was already here. It sits below the window of the front porch. Initially it looked just like a hole in the ground and had become a bit of a dumping ground for the builder's rubbish!!!
One of my first jobs was to lower an edge of the pond to make the access and exit easier for the wildlife. It also makes an ideal bathing spot for the birds.
When I first saw the pond it was just a hole in the ground with grass covering the edges and falling over into the water, this I was later to find out, was essential for emergent dragonflies.
I started to pull back the over grown grass and found the pond was edged with beautiful old stones and at the back there was a constructed rockery that had been completely hidden.
To further develop a habitat for amphibians I dug out a hole by the new beach end and added a couple of pallets, pots and twigs covered with a mound of earth to create a hibernaculum.
The Fish Pond
The corner of the mixed border might not have seemed like the best location for a pond, above it there lies a line of trees alternating between oak and beech that drop a lot of leaves in autumn. But I had seen a picture of a corner shaped pond on Pintrest and I thought it would fit in the space. So I started to dig...and over a year later I finished off the digging, lined it and in the hot summer of 2018 it was filled with water. Having a gapping hole sitting for over a year meant the sides became slightly crumbly and I had to dig the pond slightly bigger than first planned, so its ended up a bit closer to the hedge than is practical, its also lost its triangular shape, but I'm really pleased with how it turned out...and the fish love it, which is the main thing. The first plants to be added were oxygenators, Eloda crispa nicked from the wildlife pond and Milfoil bought from an ebay seller. I was very lucky to get some well established plants from a friend who was thinning out plants from her own pond and I gained Saururus, Butomus, water Plantian, Iris and a water lily. I latter added water forget me not, pickerel weed and a mini bullrush. The pond has matured very quickly and pond snails added to clean up the decaying vegetation. As the intention was to have a pond with a vegetative rather than mechanical filtration system, just five goldfish were added so not to overstock.
In spring 2019 it became a breeding pond for toads and later in the summer the local frog community and a newt were all spotted enjoying a dip.
The Splash Pond
In the courtyard there is a tiny corner that is now home to the splash pond, its barely four inches deep but serves to give wildlife a place to drink, bathe and in some cases get up to a little hanky panky.