I always fancied a water garden

You would think when you are 270 foot up a hillside, that flooding would be the least of you problems. But, as it happens, I'm on a flat part of the hill and water does gather a bit here and in the surrounding fields. We can have days upon days of rain and while I get a bit concerned about my water butts overflowing and the water level in the pond, I'm also blessed to have very free draining ground so it doesn't become too much of a problem, however, twice now in the last couple of years I have woken up after a night of torrential rain to find my garden completely underwater. The first time it happened was a couple of summers ago in June. A night of heavy rain and the field next door flooded with the water running out on to the road and straight into my garden which is slightly lower. I was amazed at how quickly the water went and by about 6pm that evening, the garden was so dry I could have have mowed the grass!

The second time it flooded was a little different though. We've had a fair amount of rain this autumn after a fairly prolonged dry spell and the ground is pretty saturated in places. Even so, when I opened the curtains last week, I was still surprised to see we once more had a water garden. My first thought was that would scupper my plans to get the bulbs in and then I thought, oh bugger, where are my fish...

I pulled on my wellies and went out into the garden. Luckily, the house is just slightly higher up and the water hasn't yet come above the patio at the front or up the path, instead its contained in the hollow, but even with my boots on I had to be careful. I made it to where I thought the edge of the fish pond was and to my dismay the pond was very muddy. Of course, just days before I had been clearing round the back of the pond and the soil had already been disturbed ready to plant in to.

I had a wade through the garden in case I could spot any flashes of orange with my trusty net, but couldn't see them zooming about anywhere. So I spent the day periodically looking out of the window and hour by hour the water receded. By midday, much of the grass was visible again and by evening only a couple of small puddles remained and even these were gone by the following morning. The pond however, despite the level dropping below the stones was all cloudy from the soil and mud sat on the last leaves of the water lily. Now, this pond has only a plant filtration system so it would be a case of just leaving it to let the particles settle, and that's exactly what I did. Other parts of the garden appeared surprisingly unscathed and I do think that is entirely due to the speed of the water draining. Unless you have a bog garden, most plants don't really want to sit with the feet in the wet, but with the light soil we have up here all they really got was a good drink! Interestingly nothing much floated away apart from a bit of log edging for the path by the pond seat. The bark stayed exactly where it should be. After the water was gone, there wasn't any tidying to do, it was almost as if it had never happened in the first place. Bizarre!

I was still concerned out my fish though but I was very relived to see a fish shape moving through the murky water and I hoped that despite the muck they would be ok. A week later and the water is once again clear, I guess the pond plants will have a bit of soil to root into, the fish are all present and correct and mother nature will continue to remind me that she is in control of the garden much more than I am!