Since the arrival of Little P (refraining from using Baby P!) we knew we'd have to get around to filling in our pond, so after emptying it of all the water and drilling drainage holes, I though it'd be a simple task of filling it with aggregate/ballast, before top-soiling and laying grass…
WRONG – it took 2 boot-fulls of Rusty Trowels broken patio cement, about 400kg of ballast, and about 200l of topsoil!

Here's the finished product – a tiny patch of grass in our little suburban garden!

Can you spot the new decking board at all…. 😉

DrP

you gotta buy a lawnmower for that?

could you not have just decked the whole thing? Eaiser than filling a big hole.

Are the police going to be digging that up "as part of their enquiries" in a few years time.?

helped my dad drill a post and bury a gate end leg. Took loads of digging and not loads of filling! well not loads! still, loads of mud left!!
goo to help my dad out though!

Decking is usually laid across the direction you will mostly walk in as the grooves stop you sliping when its wet.

Decking is usually laid across the direction you will mostly walk in as the grooves stop you sliping when its wet.

Obvious really, but I never thought about it. Realised the last lot of decking I put up was the wrong way round….

I reckon that an office desk would have dropped straight in, chop legs to reqd length, also if the grass is lower than the decking you'll need a strimmer to do the bits the mower can't get to ;+)

is it the deck or the fencing that's on a slope?

couldn't you have kept the pond & put a nice big galvanised steel grill across it instead?
1) save filling it in 2) no need for a lawnmower and 3) no frogs or fish would become homeless

Be getting swimming lessons when he's 6 months old though, won't he?
Oo hush my mouth…..:)

🙂

Thought about decking over it all, but then felt a little patch of grass would be nice for him to lie on in the summer!
As for the direction of the decking – you can see the size of the garden! Not really gonna be getting up much speed are you!
And it's the fence/ground that's on a slope!
Grass is level with the decking, but no – not going to get a mower. Am getting a tiny goat…. (or some hand shears!)

DrP

When's the ride on lawn mower being delivered?

Bottom rh corner of picture is that somebody trying to escape or digging in as a human mole

You are lucky, i have got to fill in a swimming pool for one of my customers. I have worked it out to 175 Cubic metres of hardcore which is all wheelbarrow work

did you not consider a sandpit?

Why not just do what my parents did when they had us (3 kids) – bolt a square of heavy metal mesh (2" holes) over the pond (you could stand on it mid-span) and, just to be sure, keep an eye on the kids when they're in the garden? Keep the pond, no filling required, kids get to play with frogs and learn about a ponds lifecycle.

Just a thought. Bit late now.

MrNutt – Member
did you not consider a sandpit?

Oh thats mean – someones kicking himself now… 😀

it's very Escher-esque

It was a concious decision to get rid of the pond as a)wanted to b)in the 8 months we've lived here neglecting it, not ONE single living thing has entered/left/lived in the pond!
Did consider a sand pit under a section of hinged decking (to prevent cats, and still allow walking over it when not in use) but there's other areas of the garden to put a plastic sang pit really, and desperately wanted some grass for little one to lie on.

Got this on order – I just hope he's either really tiny, of it's use of perspective….

DrP

2nd the sandpit idea.

we built a lid for ours out of decking that was hinged so we could lift it up and clip the top to the wall.

It stopped the local cats cacking in the sand when we weren't using it and meant there wasn't a foot deep hole for the littles ones to fling themselves in when running around on the deckign the rest of the time.

Holes – Yest, when you dig one, you can never ever get all the soil back in when you fill it up again. 😉

Pete – looking forward to catching up next sat 🙂 And it's true – dig a hole, fill it again, and there's stuff left over every time!

DrP

what's the betting you get a mole making an appearance on your 'lawn' !

my grandad used to have a tiny lawn due to my gran making the flower beds bigger – by the time they moved out he would put the mower on the 'lawn' switch it on for a minute, then off and put it back in the shed – no moving the mower required! 😯

Nosher you gonna need some help! On my reckoning that's around 350 tonne of type 1! **** that!!!!! In ya barrow???!!'

Your telling us it doesn't conceal a hidden underground bike emporium?

nosher you defo are gonna need some help mate it works out at about 3500 barrow loads but i dont expect you to count it while you do it lol.

We filled in a pond at our place and, yes, it took a lot of filling.

Luckily, we had a big pile of rubble in the garden to use. Unfortunately, it was 200 feet away from the pond, with 3 sets of steps in the way.