What mistakes did you make, or what do you wish you'd know, when creating your wildlife pond?

[Trustytoo]

Hoping to have a wildlife pond in place by October to attract and help creatures and birds. Plan is for it to be approx 6 feet by 3 feet in an oval shape.

40cm deep is what I see recommend and with a wide shallow ledge all around where plants can sit. Going for an EPDM liner. With builders sand under it? Don't have any old carpet.

Have watched lots of YouTube videos but each one says something slightly different.

Would like to hear from anyone who has been through the process and can share knowledge or tips.

The only thing I regret is not making mine bigger. I'd give it as much space as you can. They're a wonderful thing to have in a garden and it's used by so many different creatures. I've had numerous birds, squirrels etc drinking out of mine. Even had a heron recently. Try not to put it in direct sun. A little shade helps keep the algae under control. And something like a stick or bit of wood so that creatures can get themselves back out again.

Yeah, for me it was the siting of the thing. I think there needs to be some sun at least… mine is in almost total shade and that’s not great either.

Make sure the shelving is really horizontal, I thought ours was but it slopes down a bit so I can't put plants on the shelves which has ruined the look.
Look on Facebook groups e.g. Wildlife Ponds uk, there is loads of discussion and advice.

Ours is small and gets too much sun so is nearly dry in the summer. We put liner down with a formed pond in the middle to make a bog with pond. We put holes in the liner as recommended, but actually we don't get enough rain so there is no bog. We're planning to redo the area much bigger with a proper lined no-holes bog.

Make it bigger than you think. We bought a small moulded liner and it dries out easily and not well used.

If you want bugs etc to survive the winter it helps to have one part that is very deep. We have a small section that's a metre deep, the minimum recommended is 60cm. It's amazing to watch the wildlife turn up.

Use cobbles to make a beach area for animals to climb out

Making it too shallow (allotment rules are 30cm deep max) and too small, it's about 2 metres by 2m, it's been totally dried out since April. I didn't factor in how much water the pond plants drink so although it was fine for the first few years as the plants have grown it dries out every summer. It also freezes solid in winter. I prune and divide the plants regularly but there's only so much you can take out and still maintain the ecosystem you need them for as they maintain the water quality and cover for wildlife. I would make it deeper and bigger than you are planning.

We built ours under an apple tree- it gets lots of windfalls which I imagine is not good for the pond residents, I spend a lots of time fishing them out.
so be thoughtful about what can fall/blow in to the pond

That has been a nightmare for us, the cobbles constantly fall back in exposing the plastic liner.

Biggest thing I’d say is make sure the ledges are deep and level enough. We thought we had and actually hadn’t so really can only put plants in the too small bottom base of the pond.

Make sure there are plenty of plants around the edge of the pond (in a bed I mean, not the water) so there is shelter for creatures to get into when out of the water.

Make the deep bit deeper than you think. Quarantine any new pond plants in a bucket before planting to make sure you don’t introduce duckweed. Have plenty of hiding places around the edges like logs or bigger rocks, the toad in ours lives behind a big log. We have some rocks that poke out the top of the water that birds land on to drink.

Ours is in too much sun and so the algae thrives.
I'd also pay more attention to the edges, at first we didn't really have any and grass just grew into it then we tried large stones and they have fallen in.
Bullrushes are rampant so be careful on plants you choose.
Think about planting around the pond as well as in it.
Definitely invest in a pond liner.

I put too many plants in - ordered a mixed pack of natives, and the reeds and yellow irises have gone mad. I will try to take lots of them out this winter so that I can appreciate the water lilies, which are also thriving.

We did one end about a meter deep and the other end a ‘beach’ so animals can get out. The froglets live at the beach end amongst the large pebbles. Make sure the shelves at the sides are a decent depth and flat.

Not so much a mistake but I underestimated the ability of my cats to cause chaos in the garden in general and around the pond.

For example this morning I had to pull one away from the angry toad she was chasing and poking...

So make sure you have plenty of plants around the pond where creatures can hide.

Make it deeper if you can. Blanket weed is a bugger.

Put a rubber ball in, it stops the ice forming too much in winter. Also if you have a concrete surround you can get a special paint so froglets etc don't stick to the concrete. My dad has a fountain to help aerate the water

These are brilliant and I'm noting them all down 😊

Make it as big as possible and have part of it at least 90cm deep, to help the pond wildlife to survive heavy frosts. Don't put large flat stones around it, especially near the beach area, because froglets and efts bake to death in the sun before they can cross the hot stone in the Summer.

Mine is 2x3m, as 6m is apparently the smallest surface area that prevents too much algae forming. It's about 10 years old and we've never had an algae or noticeable 'pond smell' problem, but I really, really wish we'd made it larger! Mainly because DH and I and various friends and family members all love sitting watching the insects, birds and other wildlife enjoying it. When we reline it I plan to increase the size of it (I suspect we have a slow leak, courtesy of the dog's claws, so this will need to be done sooner rather than later). It's a very busy pond, with lots of dragonflies, all types of amphibians and a good selection of visiting wild birds, so the size seems to be a success.

The plants (2 pygmy waterlilies, an iris and floating frogbit) can go a bit mad but we just surface prune them as needed and every few years pull the iris and lillies up, give them a more vigorous prune and pop a feeding tablet or two in each of the waterlily baskets. We get lots of waterlily flowers, so it works well.

We have this stone liner laid over the liner around the edges and dug in/weighted down where needed. It hides the liner, gives birds and small creatures something to grip on and helps stop beach cobbles falling into the pond.

This. Ours is 2.5m long and has two halves, one end a meter deep, the other end, 50cm and the ledge about 30cm. Hubby's a bit of a pond expert and says go for as big as you can - ours is a bit too narrow. Size avoids it clogging up and gives space for it to develop its own ecosystem.

And don't put any goldfish in. They eat all the interesting wildlife - dragonfly larvae, newts etc

Make sure you use an underliner as well, and if you've got trees or shrubs nearby consider a root proof underliner because it is a monumental plain in the ass to have to drain the whole pond and re-line it 🙄

Make it as big as you possibly can and have one part either middle or one end 3ft deep for wildlife in winter . Plant the edges so things have got cover for getting in and out . We have a planted beach at one end for anything that needs to get out . It’s only planted with black grass but the roots of that hold the beach pebbles together and again provide cover for baby amphibians.

I put a bit of slate under the pot so it was horizontal (propped up one end) - none have fallen over yet!