Lets Build Ourselves A Wildlife Pond

For many years now I have always wanted a pond in my garden. But due to very young children or non-suitable gardens, have never had the opportunity to build one. But that has now all changed, as our children are now at an age where they appreciate nature, are safe around water and also the garden we are lucky enough to have now is crying out for a small pond. After building our new patio it became apparant that we had an area of redundant garden space that we were unsure what to do with. It was suggested that we incorporate a small pond to attract more wildlife to our garden and so the project was born.

We decided on a simple wildlife pond as we didn't want the expense and hassle of installing pumps, filters, pipes and associated electrics. This has since turned out to be a great decision as we now all love our simple wildlife pond.

After doing some research about "Making Ponds For Wildlife", I set to work digging and shaping the hole for the pond, which was no more than 30cm deep and included several shallow areas, which are great for frog spawn and other creatures. I then lined the walls of the hole with sand and speacial underlay, ready for the rubber pond liner. We then added the water, along with pebbles, pea gravel, a water lilly and small dollop of pond weed from our local pond specialist Claremont Equatics, who were very helpfull in offering their advice and suggestions. The bamboo was already in the area next to the pond and looked quite nice once the pond was complete.

So, the bases of our wildlife pond was complete and looked really nice in the area of garden we had chosen, giving us something to look at whilst sat on our patio. This kids had already found that sitting on the edge of the pond was a great way to spot wildlife and were constantly calling us over, to see a new and interesting species they had discovered lurking in the pond. In a matter of days, we already had fly larvae and other insects taking up residence and there would be much more to come.