Show me your garden ponds large and small please!

[susandelgado]

I'm trying to decide what to do, I bought a fibreglass pond but now I think it's too big, help me make my mind up 😊

I’ve got one the same size as yours. Put it in during lockdown and it already has a frog.

I bought some pond plants off eBay. A dwarf lily, dwarf rush and starwort. Don’t put only stones around it because they get too hot in summer for wildlife to walk over. And no fish is better for wildlife. Depends what you want from it

susandelgado I have a similar size and shape. I had to put a rock in both sides to help things get in and out. I had frogs one year but they died in the ice.
I read that frogs and tadpoles don’t like the rhythm of an air pump. So I just left them to it this year. We have had back legs for a week now but they don’t seem to have grown much.
Good point about stones getting hot I’ll move some before they change.

We're just about to start our own small pond project and are aiming for something like the pic below

@TwistyHair ooh I'm a bit worried now. I have six goldfish (someone was going to dump them) and my mum gave me some plants and pond weed that came full of tadpoles and water snails. I'm a bit worried that the fish might harass the tadpoles (frogs eventually), they seem to be very interested in them! Have I got too much going on?!

This is mine done about 6 weeks ago. Next door has frogs so hoping they'll fancy a new pad next year

wheresmymojo- that is glorious

I want mine to be that shape, etc but a bit more wildlife friendly as the planting around the one in the pic is not what we would go for.

It's in a partially shaded spot so thinking of some nice ferns in the shaded area...

@Sockbogies

I've always had fish and frogs living very happily together. Fish won't eat the tadpoles once they get to a certain size. In fact you are more likely to lose them to dragonfly/ damsonfly nymphs and water beetles.

With fish you will need a good all in one filter (which has the added bonus of keeping green water down in your pond and stop it going manky) and my pump hasn't put off any frogs coming and making lots and lots of baby frogs! All my tadpoles are currently living happily in the plants and oxygenating weeds around the edging :)

Just lost an hour of my afternoon watching a stickleback fan his nest which he's built on the top of the pot containing the rushes

Mine wasn't intended as a garden pond but just a water feature. We de green it every so often. We utilised DS's old sandpit

We do currently have two resident frogs

The cat loves the water fountain and he eats the grass

@GetawayfromthatWelshtart thank you, that's reassuring! I already love the pond so much - my go-to place during the day if I need to lose a few minutes. I'll have to get a pump sorted although it's such a weenie pond!

@Sockbogies I think the fish eat the frogspawn. But I guess it depends how big the pond is and how much other food there is. And how much you like fish! I’d rather have frogspawn than fish.

I also love my pond. I could stare into it for hours. Been watching damsel flies lay eggs in it recently. And some kind of hover fly thing. Now have loads of their grubs in there which are called rat tailed maggots! It’s like a miniature world in there.

@Sockbogies If your pond is tiddy then you can get ickle submersible solar fountains or solar ones that float on the surface! Keeps the water nice and oxygenated for the frogs and fishes plus it sounds lovely :)

Fish will eat some frogspawn but I find if I feed my fat buggers more when the frogs start spawning they tend to ignore it. :)

Plus you can keep it safe by putting any spawn in plastic boxes used to hold pond plants as a safety barrier and sitting it on your pond ledge (the pots are made from rigid plastic mesh all the way round so they get water flow through them).

I'm loving all your pictures and advice, I'm learning a lot today 😊

Mine's just 11" deep in the middle as that was where I hit chalk, all of the edging is slate that's just parked on the liner edge, and every few years I have to bail it out because the hazels that loom over it from next door drop so much into it that it goes horribly muddy and there's a balance between mud and somewhere for the frogs to hibernate. It's only 4' long by just under 3' wide, and has three goldfish, loads of frogs and I've no idea how many newts. They appear on their own.

Every time I bail it out, it takes just a week or two for the frogs and newts to reappear. It's amazing.

Don't put yellow flag irises in a very small pond. They choke it. I've moved them into the edge area, where there is also pond liner but it's got holes poked in. Was going to be a bog garden but the plants had other ideas. I've just got pygmy water lilies now. They are lovely, and in a week or two when they've covered most of the surface, hopefully my water will stop being green!

Don’t want to come across mean but can’t not say it...

Healthy mature goldfish grow 30cm long minimum not including the tail.
They are big fish and need big ponds.
Your pond isn’t big enough for one!
Let alone three.

The whole ‘goldfish grow to the size of their tank/pond’ is a cruel lie.

Goldfish have a life expectancy of at least 40 years.
It’s not a coincidence that the vast majority of small goldfish die in less than 5 years.
These small goldfish are ‘stunted’ and die from slow and painful organ failure.

Your pond will always be bright pea soup green no matter what plants you have because you have fish that are far, far too big for the space and are massive waste producers on top.

Goldfish actually require double the level of filtration of other fish due to the huge amount of waste they produce.

I didn’t know that frosted. I knew they needed a lot of space but didn’t realise how much

our pond is about 2m long by 1.5 m wide, so a reasonable size. It is pretty deep too. It came with the house. It is wnoderful, we added some plants.

This weekend we are clearing out behind it and going to add a top pond and a slate waterfall. Two of my favourite plants will go in the top pond.

Every year we get frogs. One year we have 16 lots of frog spawn!!
I never see the baby frogs though, they may get eaten by the fish.

We've been here 10 years and we have added plants and do very little to it. It seems ot be pretty self sufficient. It is never green and has loads of wildlife. Once a year we do clear back some of the vegetation.

The surface of a pond should be 70% covered by plants. That is apparently the right balance.

Gold fish will eat water lily roots, you plant them in a wire ball so the fish can't dig at the roots

well, I say we do little to it, dh spends a fair amount of time keeping the filter/pump going properly.

@steppemum I feel your DH's pain.

I have been having to clean mine out every week as been waiting for a UVC bulb to come as everywhere has been out of stock.

Managed to get a replacement UVC light last week, I was so happy. My partner wasn't very impressed when I showed him it but he is used to be squealing happily at pond things LOL

oh and the baby frogs won't be being eaten by the fish. They hop off and spend a LOT of time out of water as they grow up and will hide under rocks and garden waste etc and are very good at not being seen

My baby frogs start coming back after a couple of years I think as they get bigger (but still so cute and teeny looking!) but most just hide round the pond whereas the big ones like to sit in it and peek out

You won't get rid of the green water without a pond filter and UVC @moonbells. I've had to use a couple of products to kill the green and then clump it so it gets sucked into the filter (and added happy bacteria to eat any sludge) whilst trying to get hold of a new UVC bulb and it's finally clearing up. does a happy dance

Goldfish can get HUGE! and the bigger they are the more they eat and more they poo!

hmmm. It goes clear about now every year.
Fish are getting bigger so will have to find an alternative home then at least for two of them. Can't lose all as needed to keep mozzies down!

Food for thought. Thanks.

Can anyone recommend a good supplier of pond plants? We are going to build dd a little wildlife pond for her birthday.

DH built ours a couple of years ago. It's tiny. But it has frogs, newts, scarlet and bright blue damsel flies, giant dragonflies and in the evening, bats swoop down to it. Foxes drink from it. Ravens come to dunk stale bread in it. Wood pigeons bathe in it. I could watch it all day.

@VenusClapTrap I get all mine off eBay. They’ve all seemed fine so far and are growing well. Most come with bare roots so you’ll need to buy baskets and soil separately. Check delivery times so you don’t accidentally have the plants arrive before the pots and soil.