[gardgydja]

Ds and I have a dream of creating a pond on the plot. Anyone have any good stories to tell?

We are thinking about 2.5 m x 3m. We would love to have a water feature but it will have to be solar or wind powered, so that will be a project in itself.

[gardgydja]

We have looked around a bit online and as far as we can see, the best thing to do for a small pond is just dig it in various levels, the deepest bit must be at least 60 cm deep to prevent freezing in winter. Then we bung in local pond plants and hope for frogs. But dragonflies are supposed to visit fairly quickly, and birds.

We would love to make a little hill from the stuff we shovel out of the pond hole, and have a mini-pond on the top of it, with a waterfall running down into the larger pond, and then full-circle back up to the mini-pond. So we'll look for a pump that can do the job on a combination of wind, solar and battery power. There is a great swedish site called 24volt.eu that has  fantastic information about making your own energy and we plan to try out some of the things.

I would like to have iris, decorative grasses, and so on around the pond.

[garddwr]

I'm sure there was a thread on this before. I don't know anything about ponds sorry !!

[Yabba]

I'm sure there was a thread on this before. I don't know anything about ponds sorry !!

This the one you're thinking of ? Help - Garden Pond building and design

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[gardgydja]

Perfect, thanks so much! We will go for the wildlife pond, although later I would love to have a fish pond.

[mikem]

When you decide to put fish in only get say 3 or 4 and see how they settle down for a month or so. You don't want to buy lots of expensive fish and then find out that the pond isn't right for them yet and they end up dead.

When the goldfish breed the little ones are black for a year or so and then gradually turn yellow/gold. A fish pond is very relaxing and worth the effort, the fish eventually will come up and feed from your hand when they get to know you.  

[Yabba]

And get some pangasius ... always sounds cool when you say "yeah, I have a couple of baby sharks in my pond"

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[gardgydja]

It should keep people from cooling their feet in the pond anyway!

[upert]

i got a preformed pond off freecycle which i put on my plot. if you want frogs to move in don't get any fish as they'll eat the tadpoles. i did get fish to eat the mosquito larvae though.