Pond ideas

[Itsneverme]

I've decided I would love a pond, please can you show me your DIY ponds and ponds bought really need some inspiration

So much inspiration here… actually I am finding the will to get the garage knocked down. I could have quite a big one and a nice seating area next to it so we can just watch.
whats the consensus on adding a fountain/water feature - is this positive or negative for wildlife? It’s so lovely to hear the water trickling away.

Thanks, very similar to mine. And rule number one, NO FISH ever, if you want newts, frogs, dragonflies, etc.

I never thought of using a sandpit! We have two that were given to us, just sat at the top of the garden. Could build rocks and turf up the side.

I have been considering a very small pond for wildlife. We do get frogs so it would be nice to provide another location for tadpoles

Updated photo from today. Very overgrown but deliberately so as it provides shelter for the beasties.
A word of warning on frogs. Frogspawn is fun the first year,fine the second,but you get more year on year until you are absolutely overrun and the pond cant sustain the numbers

Loving everyone's pond photos, here's some starlings making use of ours last year.

My mother in law had no fish in hers, it's now bloody full of them. We cab only think they've come from fish eggs our of bird poop!

Is there any way to attract frogs to a pond? DH put in our pond 3 years ago and we have lots of newts and dragonflies but not a single frog.

You’d get away with sticklebacks. And possibly green tench which are totally veggie. But easier to manage without fish.

Sticklebacks are interesting, watching the males nest-build and then stand guard.

Frogs might just be being sensible. Newts gobble frogspawn and small tadpoles.

Until a neighbour gives you 5 newts and your frog numbers crash

Water lilies don’t like moving water.

Frogs prefer to lay in still water, but will lay in an area of still water at the edge of a stream.

what I found was really popular with birds was a short shallow stream linking two ponds.

However, any kind of water feature will need a pump, and hence pump maintenance.

Newts only appeared the second year so no frogs before they turned up!

I really want frogs but seems like they don't fancy moving in

We do have some changes of level within our garden so will have a think if we have the ability to have two ponds plus a stream… that would be - wow!! And then I guess you still need a pump to put the water back into the upper pond …

And then I guess you still need a pump to put the water back into the upper pond … Yes, exactly

How long do pond liners last? I'd worry that I was spending lots of money establishing something that would need to redone down the line.

Here's mine. Top down view. We have heron issues so we like to screen it. Six years ago we extended the house and built a pond right by the house so you can clearly see it. We have fish, frogs, newts and get a lot of pleasure from it.

Pond liners you can buy in quality difference thicknesses of 15 20, 25 years etc. hard liners last longer.

Generally you either get frogs or newts in a pond, but rarely do they coexist happily. Bizarrely they do in my parents pond, plenty of both which is a fairly standard wildlife pond with a pump which moves water to top of a cobbles slope which trickles down into the shallow end. So pond is pretty still but there's still aeration to the water.

Here's a side view. Our pond is also very popular with the local cats who are mesmerized by the fish. You'll be amazed at how much mud digging a pond generates and endlessly sieving stones. We lined it with old carpet and a liner which we think has a tear in and needs re-lining this autumn.
We have a solar powered filter pump which also helps keep the bloody heron away.

Bloody heron.

That's a lovely pond, Menopausalmare.

in our last house we had a small pond, with a waterfall. We had fish, frogs and newts, they all seemed to survive. Tons and tons of spawn. Loved when the little froglets left en masse across the grass. Sadly no frogs yet in my pond in this house. Surrounded by arable fields and wonder of the sprays kill them off 😟

I love my wee pond! Its about 7ft by 4ft, a small bit in the middle is 3ft deep, but most of it is much shallower, with a beach at both ends. Took ages to dig out, and a while for it to look established - the first year the pond liner was v obvious, the edges quite stark.

One of the beaches ends in ferns, hostas & rodgersia. Good cover for newts etc. The other beach area has way less planting, is much prefered by birds.
I have corkscrew rush and pickeral weed for the damselfly, mayfly etc to use when they emerge - somewhere they can clamber up to shed their skin and harden off is needed.

Maintenance is scooping out duckweed and "checking its ok" by sitting in the sun to watch it. It's one of my favourite bits of the garden.

I want to put a little pond in my allotment, quite a few people have them, but they generally have lots of black plastic showing round the edges. All the recommendations online for hiding liner seem to involve rocks / large stones. I don’t have any (and don’t want to buy a load of rocks!) but at the same time I imagine the water level will go down quite a bit in summer and I don’t want it to look ugly round the edge. Any ideas?

Get the heaviest duty one you can. Then you can expect 25 years at least.

I follow a few wildlife pond groups on FB - they don't recommend too many rocks as baby amphibians can get stuck to them & die in hot weather. Someone suggested sand bags - filled with sand to weight down the liner, & then planted on top with seed to create a more natural edge. I might do this when we finally do our wildlife pond.

I have some serious pond envy!

Here's mine last year - only about 1 metre across and about 70cm deep. No maintenance at all, really. You cannot see it well in this pic but there is a spitting frog just on the farside, powered by a solar pump. Just a trickle, really.

And the difference it has made the wildlife in the garden is immense. Nothing else we've done made such a difference.