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Slight hi jack but a question for any pond diggers present - is there an optimum shape that is easier to bed the liner into?
I marked out an elliptical shape because my liner is oblong and ponds are roundish.
Then thinking about it if the maximum pond size for my liner is 1.8 x 3 x .9 why not dig a rectangle with rounded corners? It wont look very natural to start with but by the time it is planted and landscaped the overall shape will be lost - hopefully.
Gentle slopes make it easier, you have to think a bit in 3D. One of mine is roughly triangular and deep with vertical sides in the right-angle corner which was a bit awkward. Though liners have a bit of give and folds aren't really a problem, except for using up more material than you might expect. I actually had to invest in a bit of glue and stick a spare bit on to finish off the shallow side which was embarrassing but has held up. I didn't dig it that shape (and wouldn't recommend it) but was renovating an existing pond after moving in.
most of articles I have read recommend a kidney shaped pond as corners cause issues with flow of water e.g. https://anypond.com/pond-shapes/
retro83 - I'm afraid I couldn't face moving it away from the fence. Hopefully won't need to get down that side of it too often. Just waiting for the wildlife to arrive now!
Looks good!
Dragging this up as we've had a pond put in over lock down 🙂
The sound of water in the garden is lovely (and a great distraction for a tinnitus sufferer!). Few bits to finish off, but fish are in and seem happy.
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Second wave? SECOND POND!
Started on the 'BOTTOM POND' (arf) on sat. Had to move the giant Hydrangea to the front, which has gone in the place of a massive cypress tree which we had to get taken out (too close to the house) so quite a chain of events to get here. Liner just ordered. Now having a right do over pumps and filters. The internet suggests I need a massive pump to make the waterfall work - 120cm wide waterfall x 1.5 x 60 gives 10800 litres per hour. Is that right do your reckon? Also under what circumstances would I need a filter? 
The mk1 covid infinity pond has been a great hit over the summer. Lot's of larvae initially and manky green water, added a cheap little solar fountain, lily and some pointy oxygenating stuff and it's now crystal clear and we can finally see where our 4 year old hid all the clothes pegs... still no lily flowers (prob transplanted a bit late) and I'd also like a dragonfly.
Sudden thought while posting... might this be too noisy?!
And we're working!
Bit of tidying to do, but have cut and fitted the top row of sleepers to the lower pond, sprayed the overflow black and begun tidying the piping/cabling. We've had a run of cold and very wet weather, so struggling to seal the rear of the bottom pond so no extended running until this is sorted. Thinking about fixing a thin copper strip across the spillway to smooth the flow. Pump is 12500 litres per hr, and just about up to the job. Would go for a narrower fall next time though. Also had an important reminder of physics. Turned the pump off with the hose in the upper pond, and it all siphoned back through the pump into the bottom pond, overflowing onto the garden and emptying the top pond. Good job no fish involved. Inflow pipe now terminates above the waterline, after passing through a 40mm hole in the top sleeper. Just some tinkering to do now, and hopefully the planting will all recover/grow up nicely to soften the lower one.
We have frogspawn!!!
Good thread resurrection. 👍🏻
Our new pond attracted loads of frogs and newts this spring.
sadly the local cats have killed all our frogs. Over 20 now gone, the cats chew their heads up and leave the bodies, often full of spawn. 😞
We try our best to encourage birds and frogs and selfish people's cats just destroy the lot. I'd happily shoot them all.
F
Oh sad. I like cats but they do so much damage.
Our 3 large plops of spawn arrived Sunday morning. I was worried as the pond has been freezing over, even up to the few days before the spawning.
Our toad spawn arrived Sunday too. Pond had ice on it Saturday.
Ah nothing in mine we did have a wintering toad hiding in the rocks/water splash thing.
Oh well onto the bee hotel with grass/clover roof that I'm doing next.
My dissatisfied with the frogs/toads lazyness has been rewarded with lots of eggs this morning they must be late starters. ,👍👍👍
No frogspawn here 🙁 Trust me to build a pond that doesn't attract a female.
No frogspawn here 🙁 Trust me to build a pond that doesn’t attract a female
Update!
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Not a lot, but exciting nevertheless.
We have loads of frogspawn (as usual) but we also have newts and I think they love eating the tadpoles.
Looking for a lady (or boy) friend 🙂
Good thread this. Think I would like a pond - I have a blank canvas garden project on for the next few years... we were saying a nice water feature my be a good idea for draining surrounding areas and the trickle of a fountain will hide the distant hum of the motorway we get on some days...
One question tho for those of you with tons of frogs and newts - do you have dogs also? Just because my mrs does not respond too kindly when my dogs bring dead frogs in the house! I also don’t want my dogs to be froggy murderers either. In addition, I’m fairly sure my Airedale will jump in the pond at every opportunity!
No dogs here. The blackbirds and magpies had been snacking on our tadpoles though - I've installed some mesh protection for the little wrigglers.
Also have a fine selection of newts - I'm told the smaller ones are Palmate Newts and the big one is a Smooth Newt. No Great Crested yet.
That's a brilliant photo!
A less brilliant one, of some bank holiday canoodling.
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I've let nature take over mine for now lots of tadpole action although I did put a lot of water fleas in and horn snails in.
Lotus Lilly is going well it looks a little messy but they all seem to be enjoying it
Having a burst of various bits of weedy/algae stuff, but I don't have the heart to remove it
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Hopefully your tadpoles will start to eat the algae.
So, the tadpoles 😬
Despite all sorts of attempts to protect them from the late frosts, interfering with nature and all that, I'd overlooked the fact I have 9, inch-long, fish of unknown origin.
Apparently fish like tadpoles.
It was a massacre.
However I've spotted two tadpoles today that are now too large to be eaten by the sodding fish. Survival of the fattest.
I also have dozens (if not hundreds) of snails, which are fascinating in their own way - especially when they're floating about on the top of the water, upside down. Weirdos.
8 frogs
9 fish
circa 100 snails
2 tadpoles
Thousands of really weird insect things that come out at night.
And all I did want put some water and plants in a hole. It's brilliant, can't recommend it enough.
One of the two lone survivors:
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One of the sharks (God knows what they actually are)
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One of the hedonistic snails, getting high on algae.
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That's nothing.
I was out with my nephew looking at my parents pond. It was like the Marsh scene in lord if the rings all these massive dead frogs floating beneath the surface.
Apparently it can all get a bit gangbangy and so many boyfrogs latch on the female drowns! And the dark part? Some of the males don't even realise and were still hanging on... Explain that to a 5 year old.
Tadpoles in my pond are eating me out of pond and home.....
We have have to feed them cucumber on the odd
days it's like watching orcas on a feeding frenzy. Some are just getting back legs so they look like Deadpool.
and I've got ram's horn snails in eating alge.
No fish allowed.
And for the first time little outer skeletons of damson fly or caddis fly left on the pond plants oddly as I redid my pond last summer so not sure where they came from.
So far a success. Will just have keep an eye on the crow population when the frogs get bigger
If you build it, nature will come. :0)
Nature's a bitch.
Just fished a dead fledgling/bird teenager out of the pond. Think it was a house sparrow.
God knows how it drowned, possibly landed without anything to stand on, but my soft-**** mode is fully engaged - really sad.
Frogs don't give a shit, obviously.
Upsetting update warning:
And tonight, after being away for a few days, I've had to scoop a dying frog out of the pond.
No idea what's caused it, but after taking it out of the pond (floating nearly lifelessly) and putting in a safe, damp and dark, place and watching over the bloody thing to make sure neighbour's cats didn't get it- it's gone and died.
Stupid really,but I'm quite gutted. I was watering the whole area before I went away as growing wildflowers around the pond and didn't want them to die in the impending heatwave whilst I was away. Now wondering if I upset the chemical balance with too much tap water, although the other frogs appear fine.
Ponds - wonderful givers and sustainers of life or, seemingly, deathpools"
*Comment not sanctioned by Ryan Reynolds.
Frogs can drown, I have to extract one a year out of our pond. We have lots of frogs in the garden which given where we live is odd (right up on the moors) but they live in the flower beds not the pond.
So a more cheerful update; pond's been in for just over a year and it's getting a 'natural' look at last. You can kind of tell where it gets enough sun for flowers, so more rotten logs etc needed to fill the gaps. Battling the stringy algae, but that's my fault for not fishing the leaves out enough.
I still have lots of frogs, **** knows how many fish (and they keep growing in size and having babies, despite me not feeding them) and the hedonistic snails. Everything is becoming a little bit harder to spot, and I've not seen the tadpoles since they morphed into frogs (3 made it that I last saw) but that's fine - I guess they probably prefer it that way.
Also, the once a year pond lily flower has just opened today.
Easily one of the best things I've done; lovely to sit there of an evening and watch the bees snorting pollen and pond life, well, just being weird.
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Beautiful.
Our native water lily (small yellow flowers) produced a couple of blooms last year. This year it's kept producing many flowers and for weeks on end.
The Hedgehog has been drinking from our pond, leaving its calling card, birds use it as a bath, many new baby pond skaters and baby frogs all around the garden, but so far not a single damsel fly and I think the snails are hiding. At least 40 - 100 pond skaters. Nature is wonderful.
That's probably the best bit actually - the amount of birds that use the pond. Just sip from or bathe in.
Looking out and seeing a bunch of house sparrows, especially the youngsters, losing their shit in the shallow end on hot days is fantastic.
Not had a hot day for about month now though, mind you 🤔
[b]WOO-HOO![b]
All that bloody trouble I went to trying to protect the sodding tadpoles from the frost, then watching them get eaten by the effin' fish (that I never put in) and finally seeing three tadpoles that were too big for the fish to eat....
..look what I've just spotted!
I'm chuffed to bits.
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It's an unglamorous location the little bleeder decided to pose in, so have another wildflower pic (Wilko, £3 for a box - that covered this area - and don't listen to what the internet tells you about they must have low nutrient soil etc; for these it was just MP compost, raked, sowed and regularly watered)
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blanket weed....any tips??
horrible stuff that I want rid of!
@jimfrandisco add a bale of barley straw. Sink it into your pond and let it sort of rot down. Worked wonders on mine. You can get small bales for little ponds.
brilliant - thanks @stwhannah - had heard rumours about that, but assumed it was for big ponds only. Will look into it.
The problem with wildflower (even mini) meadows is that they may not look as good as that next year. You'll definitely need to take the nutrients out of the soil and maybe re plant or re seed.
Cute little fog. I was weeding our strawberry patch and a teeny froglet jumped out of the leaves so high, it hit my leg, gave me a wee fright, but so good to know it's in there eating the mini slugs, snails and pests.
Bit late this year again but 2 frogs where doing the wild thing on my path the other day and now we have a small amount of spawn so YAY .
How are your ponds
I was out at 3am the other morning (don't ask) and I heard some lone frog making his mating call. Fingers crossed!
...and his mating call appears to have worked!
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Bizarrely, last year's spawn were also after a Saturday night.
Yay.
my pond if full to the brim with spawn now, they have been having a good time of it by the looks of it.
We have nesting birds too a bit of light releif in a crappy March.
Just need a hedge pig to visit and thats me happy.