The
Story of Our Pond
This
is what we started with in 2000 - a wild flower garden that really lived
up to its description! We had a lot of clearing up to do but at least
we have some beautiful poppies and nigella springing up in the strangest
places in the garden which I can only assume come from this source.
As
usual we had drawn the plans on graph paper before we started (Shirley
is never happier than when she is "designing") and had measured
everything up both in inches and cms.
Tony
and his team set to work and started to dig the hole. All the soil had
to be taken out of the garden by hand in wheelbarrows as there was no
way we could get a mini-digger down the garden.
To
give you some idea of size - the pond is approximately 9 ft wide and 20ft
long. It is about 3ft 6" deep although this varies depending where
you are in the pond!
The
pond seemed to take forever to fill up with water and we were dreading
the Thames Water bill (we are metered here) but it wasn't too bad in the
end.
Tony
very kindly donated some irises and the pond-skaters soon moved in. Jonathon's
Mum gave us an umbrella plant which seems to have settled in and is starting
to take over (she warned us it was a thug!).
Our
next "design" was the fountain. Shirley's original design was
taken by Pete Wheeler and made into a workable format (she never was very
technically minded) then made up in copper and brass. Of course, Pete
didn't come and put it in place so Jonathon had that dubious task!
The
fish arrived - 21 of them to begin with and I finally managed to get a
picture of some of them for this page. We've got 1 black one, 2 yellow
ones, a couple of 2 coloured ones and the rest are orange - all goldfish
type fish - nothing fancy as far as we know!
The
frog (see picture at the top of the page) keeps guard and the fish seem
quite good at diving for cover if they hear anything or there's a shadow
over their pond but recognise that our shoes crunching on the gravel at
the side of the pond may mean food so they come up and have a quick look
when they hear us.
We
bought 2 lillies - one pink and one yellow. Again, Jonathon had to get
in the pond on a regular basis to gently lower them but they are now on
the bottom and established and appear to be thriving. We understand from
our neighbours that the flowers are at their best during the day while
we're at work.
We
were a bit concerned to see a heron in a nearby tree (close enough to
see the pond) so we put some nets over as a start. We got some marine
angling wire on one of our visits to Cornwall and have criss crossed it
to keep him, the carrion crows and the cats away from the fish.
We
(and Tony) weren't entirely satisfied with the edging to the pond so he
and Shane have been here again to change it (mainly Shane this time).
So it was off with the old bricks ... as you can see it looked a bit bare
at this stage.
Then
the tiles came in and were duly put in place. The fish seemed to be quite
happy with all this activity and Shane was very careful not to get mortar
into the pond in case it did them any harm
Unfortunately,
during the couple of days the nets were off the pond (before we got the
wires put in place) the heron swooped and nicked some of the fish. We
think we had 14 left but it was difficult to count them accurately.
We
were given some more fish by Lisa's Dad so there were a few more of them
to shoal about. Bob and Pam from next door then decided to fill their
daughter's fish pond in (not a good idea to have a pond with a toddler)
so we got another 50 (or so) fish. By this time, our own had been breeding
so we think we've got well over 100 now!
Finally,
the revamp was finished and we think it looks a lot better - it hides
the black liner better than before and generally looks more "finished
off".
When
Bob and Pam delivered the fish, they also brought us another lily (which
seems to be huge), another plant that lives on the edge and some oxygenating
weed. We've also bought ourselves a new dark red lily so we are hoping
for plenty of colour next year.
As
you can see from this picture we now get frogspawn and our stone frog
has plenty "real" friends now.
Not
satisfied with frogs, we have also spotted a newt and some diving beetles
in the pond - it's a hive of activity.
By
Spring 2003 the irises were growing well and the water lillies were starting
to send their leaves up to the surface. Picture to the right is May 2003.
The
fish hibernate in the winter but they were late going to "sleep"
this year (2003) as it was so mild - a keen frost saw them disappear into
the irises - we expect them to reappear early April.
Spring
2004 - We've had the pond cleaned and tested and all seems fine. The only
bad news is that the heron has decided to use the fountain as a staging
post as he gets a good vantage point from there.
That
was fine until he landed on the edge of one of the leaves and the whole
thing fell over. Jonathon had to venture in and rescue the fountain -
it was in 2 bits on the side for a while ...
...
it's now back in one piece and reinstalled so the fish have plenty of
cover for the lovely sunny weather we're enjoying. We've got wires across
the fountain and a "fence" around the pond (about heron-knee
high) to discourage more visits.
As
a reminder, this is what we started with and where we are now ...
