Kiddie pool for garden wildlife pond?

[TextureSeeker]

I'm an impulsive lady and after listening to someone on the radio earlier talking about how a pond is the best thing you can do for wildlife in your garden I'm now staring at an old paddling pool and wondering if I can DIY a garden pond from it?

It's about 1.5 metres in diameter and around 30cm deep, it's solid plastic not a blow up one. The idea is I would dig it in, put some sand and gravel at the bottom, some rocks, some plants maybe a solar fountain type thing to keep the water moving and jobs a good 'un?

Is this something that can work? Did you do a wildlife pond on a budget, how did you do it? Really need advice, I'm off work this week, the sun is shining and I'm sat in the garden with a spade itching to dig!

Sounds perfect. Only thing I would add is that you need something that lets animals crawl out if they fall in such as hedgehogs. A plank of wood of slate or similar is fine.

Yes you can definitely use it. Dig a hole, sink it in, make sure you then add rocks etc of differing levels so that wildlife can get in and out and ideally you would also have a sloped beach end.

A wildlife pond doesn't need a pump or filter or anything like that

If you build it they will come

I did this early last autumn. Dug a hole and used a preformed small pond from the garden centre. It's now established with tadpoles, the birds bath in it and I'm fairly sure I saw a newt.

Top it up in summer.

Put it somewhere where it gets sun but not full sun all day.

You have to put plants in to keep the water clear, I chose stuff from the garden centre that said for small/micro ponds. Put them in the mesh baskets they also sell at garden centre with aquatic compost and put some gravel on top. (you can make your own baskets and use garden soil).

Also you can buy free floating oxygenating plants that help keep it clear. Someone on here suggested watercress from the supermarket.

Make ledges using bricks to balance mesh plant pots on, they need different depths. And put a stick in or similar so if a hedgehog falls in they can clamber out.

There's load of you tube videos.

The next stage for me it planting up round it and putting some stones round to try and make it look a bit more natural.

I like my pond a lot.

Ah so happy to see these replies! Yes the person on the radio mentioned putting something in to make sure creatures can get out. I'm so excited, I fear dh may not be quite as excited as me when he comes home to me excavating the garden 😂

It will be fine, my tadpoles etc all prefer the very shallow areas.
I would line the base with aquatic soil with Pebbles on top to stop it being disturbed and plant directly into that otherwise the normal pond baskets will stick up higher than the water level as it has rigid sides the roots damaging it shouldn't be an issue compared to materia liners.

With it being relatively small you can let it fill naturally from rain which is far better than tap water.

You'll need to look at the plating depth too but any marginals should be fine, might need to be picky over lily's.

In the winter put a ball which you can remove to give an air hole and to prevent it freezing over as it will be relatively shallow.

This is such a great reply, thanks, lots to bear in mind. I had no idea you could buy plants for small ponds, that'll make it so much easier.

We have a proper landscaped pond and it is teaming with seasonal and permanent wildlife and fish and lovely plants.
But it's a right bugger to maintain and we have someone to come around and do the maintenance.
I once visited a very quaint garden full of diy setups and green credentials (repurposed items, diy solar power, bee hives, all sorts of things) It was very chaotic yet amazing. The lady had a couple of repurposed small barrels as mini ponds. They had plants and fish. No pump or filter for the water, nothing. She would just top up the water as needed and that was that. So it definitely can work.
You must site this in a shady area to avoid algae and to avoid overheating and fast evaporation during sunny days. Also consider some sort of ledge/rocks for birds and wildlife access for drinking. Keep an eye out for herons!
Go for it and enjoy it!

Don't use garden soil as advised above, there are too many nutrients in it and will cause you lots of issues with algae, aquatic soil specifically has very low nutrients content

https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/types/aquatic-bog/planting

RHS says you can use garden soil as long as free from pesticides and herbicides.

I made a very basic pond by digging a hole (similar size to what you describe), small central area quite deep but the rest quite shallow. I removed any obvious stones and lined it with an old blanket then did buy some pond liner. Stuck pond liner on top of blanket, weighed down edges of liner with stones and soil, done. It isn't the neatest job but the frogs love it at spawning time. One thing I would say is that frogs and newts don't live in the pond all the time so you need areas for them to hide around the garden to find slugs to eat. My garden is a mess with lots of undergrowth, leaf piles, old plant pots etc. lots of happy wildlife but not everybody's idea of a nice garden. If your garden consists only of an immaculate short lawn with very neat beds of bedding plants then you might need to think about other aspects of the garden too to make it wildlife friendly. But the birds will like the pond regardless :)

My garden definitely leans towards being like yours, immaculate is not a word anyone would use to describe it 😂

Thanks so much for all of the replies. I have a clear vision of what I need to do now. I'm so excited to get started!

If you can find things like ferns from other parts of your garden it's a good idea to use these to put around the pond to provide some cover. Animals will be more reluctant to use a pond which is completely exposed. We have a big clump of crocosmia which provides good cover. There is always a toad to be found nestling in amongst the leaves.

Glad to hear yours isn't immaculate either :) There are a lot of retired people round me who either have plenty of time and/or a gardener and their gardens look lovely and neat but there is absolutely nowhere a frog or hedgehog could hide or any nesting materials for birds. The blackboards have been happily rummaging around in my garden gathering beakfuls of twigs etc.

Try and site it so it gets at least some shade for part of the day during mid-summer, or you will end up with hot, green soup.

@BarrelOfOtters thats amazing! I did a pond last summer too and even though it’s lovely and clear it’s not got much wildlife - I mean, loads of bugs, the snails I put in are thriving, we had lots of dragonflies within days (but none since) and the birds loved it at first. But no frogs or newts! 😢

@BingoMarieHeeler give it time. We had a much bigger pond there 3 years before that was full of frogs that we'd had to take out because of building work. So I think the frogs had been popping back to see where it had gone.

I'd love to see some photos once it's done @TextureSeeker

Any anyone else's pond pics if they'd like to share them!

If its not too embarrassing an effort I'll post!

Nice! ⚾

Did you make the pond @TextureSeeker ?

Just to update from my ‘no frogs 😢’ post back in April…

WE HAVE FROGS

We’ve seen 3, 3 days in a row now. It was SO EXCITING and honestly a highlight of my life. So that’s a massive relief. Although this weekend a visiting child poured bubble mix in the pond 😤😤😤 only a little bit that I saw so hopefully that was it. I think it will be ok. But the stress…!

Have just taken on an allotment and going to do a small container pond there too I think.