Nature Pond Project Wildlife garden

07/05/2020

Read Time:2 Minute, 35 Second

So we got bored and decided to build a Nature Pond.

The Pond is 11.5 feet long by 6.3 feet wide by 2.5 feet deep at its deepest, this pond is aimed mainly at amphibians and insects but we may add some small fish like sticklebacks later on.

Constructing the Nature Pond

We started by laying some string around where we wanted the pond to be, we then went over this with spray paint and then dug the first layer to create the first shelf.

This been mainly a nature pond we didn’t stick to any set depths all we wanted was a lot of shelves of differing heights for spawning, basking, hiding and feeding.

One side of our pond is higher than the other which with a goldfish pond would be a no-no but with a nature pond you can be a bit more happy go-lucky in your approach lucky for us as our garden is basically a slope.

We then gave the hole we created a good soaking then measured up for our pond liner ended up getting a 4×5 meter liner that we managed to get a good deal on with matching underlay from Amazon (https://amzn.to/3cf5RLI).

Over the next couple of days we re-soaked the ground as it was a quite hot week and we didn’t want the ground to be dried out when we put down the underlay and pond liner.

This also allowed us to easily check for sharp objects just beneath the soil and mould edges where we needed to.

Next Stage of the Nature Pond Build

Materials Used

Shovel

Pond Liner and Underlay got a good deal on this on Amazon https://amzn.to/3cf5RLI

Gravel Got this from a local aggregate company bought a Tonne for £40

Ground Sheet for soil we used old gazebo side that was damaged.

Building a Nature Pond four month update

So it’s four months later and here’s how our ponds currently looking, its taken a while due to Covid-19 causing various things to be out of stock everywhere and we’re still not finished.

We’re looking forward to next Spring/Summer when we can add frogs/newts etc and a lot more plants.

So since the last update we’ve installed outdoor electrics added a water fountain/filter we’ve made a small trickle filter that keeps the soil for plants wet even if pond level drops and also filters the water slightly, we have some lilies in the pond some bought from our local garden centre and some from wish, some duckweed and then a few marginals near our home made filter.