Making a new wildlife pond

[Babru]

Still too cold for proper gardening so more work round the pond, I was pleasantly surprised to receive my order of pond plants, so they were placed in the water, they do look lonely, over �40's worth and you have to play hunt the plant, I hope they spread out a bit.
The edges of the pond are almost done, I have created a trench with the liner then placed in it and backfilled with soil to create a bog garden round the edge.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]90892[/ATTACH]

I love the mossy stones you are using for edging. Very beautiful.

[burnie]

The stones have been in the garden since we bought it, they used to mark a circle round the old apple trees, until I had to chop them down last Autumn. Once there a few plants growing over and through them I hope they will give a natural look.

[burnie]

An update shot with some plants slowly growing and the blanket weed not growing slowly, if that was edible I'd be setting up a stall at the farmers market lol

[Peanut]

That looks fantastic Burnie! I hope to get a wildlife pond in this Autumn, like you I've got a bath to use for the deepest bit.

[burnie]

Use a spirit level to get it straight is the best advice I could offer.

[annie8]

I just built a wee pond last week. Best thing so far is that I put some watercress and it has already rooted. A Hoverfly is spending lots of time around it and there are tiny creatures in it today which I think might be some kind of insect larvae.

[burnie]

Remember to give the watercress a proper wash if you harvest any to eat.

[annie8]

Will do but hadn’t been thinking of harvesting it. It was for some cover and oxygenation in the water. Certainly the pond started a bit murky and muddy but now is pretty clear.

[Plot70]

Mine has stayed murky and muddy as a large common frog keeps jumping in and out and spends quite a lot of time rooting around in the bottom stirring up the silt at the bottom.
It gets topped up if the water but fills otherwise I have to let some rain water from the hose.
I seeded it with some green water out of a very old water butt.
There were a lot of mosquito grubs in there until some red figure eights appeared. I think these are sun fly lava.
Sun flies do look like hover flies and I have seen them flying over the water.
https://www.ispotnature.org/communit...haired-sun-fly

[burnie]

We have some awesome Damsel fly larvae, no idea where they came from as we've not seen any adults around, they are fearsome predators and growing like mad.

[annie8]

Wondering if the wee wriggly things might be mosquito larvae. That seems quite common in newly created ponds.

[Plot70]

I know what mosquito lava look like.
The numbers declined once the red lava appeared so they will be eating them.
There is a large common frog that spends a lot of time around my pond. It spends a lot of time diving and resting at the bottom of the rubber ladder I created.
Toads just jump in and after a dip work there way round to the ladder and climb out again.
The frog will certainly enjoy eating some of the adult insects and may even have a go at some of the lava.

[burnie]

As well as the terrestrial insect larvae, we now have diving beetles, water boatman, snails and pond skaters breeding in the pond, fascinating watching the water.

[Plot70]

Today there was lots of flies that can land on the water as well as hard surfaces.

[Jungle Jane]

It worries me if a hedgehog falls in,I piled some large stones up at the side of my little water feature next to this plant in the photo. Frogs need something too they can’t jump out of water & would be stuck in there unable to climb out. We had a newt & toads over the years,that’s a plastic duck incase it looks real in the photo that pot does pour water out of it I just never plug it in,it makes a little humming sort of noise,I can’t remember but if there’s moving water you can put some of the barley straw in some old pair of tights to sink in the water,to help against pond weed,our cat likes drinking out of it even though there’s two cat bowls of fresh water daily on the patio,I find that really strange he must like the taste of plant -