Once spring arrived work on the ponds has progressed to the point where I can now say they are done.

The Wildlife Pond

The Pond for the Frogs & Newts

This pond was really completed last year but the wifey has added her touch, I do the hard work and Hannah adds the finishing touches. We now have a variety of plants around and in the pond as well as snails, newts, mussells and tadpoles living in the pond as well as a variety of wildlife living on top of the water.

The Fish Pond

The Pond for the Fishes

The fish pond was a lot more work than the wildlife pond. The waterfall was changed several times until I got it right, and then moving again so it could be viewed better from our seating area by the pond.  Again the pond was finished last year and this spring was just remaking the bridge, it was too high, and continuing the decking around to the patio area we unburried. The patio stones were very uneven so they were lifted the area levelled, took me two attempts, and the stones relayed.

Hannah then added the various plants in and around the waterfall and behind the pond aswell as the furniture on the patio. This is now our relaxing area for the evening, as it is far enough down the garden to get the evening sun. With the addition of my windchime, which was a present from some good friends and a few plant pots, and our outdoor wine rack, also presents from friends we have a great area to sit by the pond.

This is the first post that shows how our garden has ‘grown’ over the time we have been working on it.

The Old Pond

The BIG feature of the garden was the pond.

We knew the pond had been neglected by the previous owners of the house and had been told there was no life in the pond, except the abundance of lily.

The plan was to ‘shrink’ the pond and turn it into a wildlife pond and hopefully attract some frogs and newts.  A problem soon arose, the pond was not empty. It already had fish, frogs and newts living in it!

The New Pond, with Adam trying to help dig.

Plan B

So plan B came into action. Build a smaller pond opposite the big one for our wildlife pond and worry

about filling in the old one when done.

After some time the new pond was finished and we could drain the old and transfer the few fish and frogs into the new pond.

Suprise number two then came up. In the pond were over 80 tench, 30 newts and I stopped counting the frogs at 50.  New pond was going to be a little small for all those fish, let alone the rest of the wildlife!

Plan C

So Plan C began. The old pond would once again be shrunk to less than half its size and the tench would go back to live in there and hopefully we could persuade the frogs and newts with the right enviroment to live in Pond 1. Still had too many fish, so we managed to persuade my brother (Thanks bro’) to take some for his pond (20 – 30).  Over the winter and with the help of a hungry magpie when the fish were moved into the now shrunken old pond there was just over 30 of them.

They are now happily enjoying life in there new filtered pond that is complete with running water. Didn’t think a fish could look happy but they do. The tench are a boring browny green and difficult to see when swimming near the bottom so we have added some colour, Koi, Goldfish & Shubunkin and some other fishes, I’ve forgotten the names of already. 12 new fishes to enjoy our pond and add some colour.