Project Pond – Part 2
Last weekend’s ‘Project Pond‘ had a bit of a hiatus thanks to a busy week at work, but with another bank holiday weekend to play with it was straight back to it on Friday evening. The liner and pond membrane I ordered had already arrived so it was time to make it look like a pond, rather than a hole in the garden. It was left looking like this last weekend.
There was some other garden DIY to take care of too. I’d decided that the bee hive by the bedroom window could do with a new stand, so a new one was hurriedly constructed from some offcuts of wood here and there. Most of it came from an old gate that we used to have on the decking. Morgan came out to help as well.
A Jetty for the Robot Mower!
One of the things I’d been puzzling over was how to keep Hector, our robot lawn mower, from falling into the pond yet still allowing him to mow right up to the edge. The solution I came up with was a little jetty for him. I could build it from some plastic log edging laid horizontally rather than vertically. I hoped to be able to lay his boundary wire in such a way that he’d be able to roll onto the ‘jetty’, mowing the edge of the lawn as he did so but not falling into the pond.
I had some of the edging left over from elsewhere in the garden. I therefore increased the size of the pond creating another tier and dug all the others down a little deeper. This gave me another tier that provided room for the ‘jetty’. I hoped to tuck the liner under the jetty so that the water could go underneath it.
This new tier also made the pond deeper, wider and longer. This is obviously good as it would soon start filling up with landscaping materials and plants. I also meant that it used up all of the 4m x 3m liner that I’d bought.
I then waited for Morgan to be available so that he could help with the liner and membrane. He seemed quite keen to get involved. While I waited I made sure there were no sharp stones or roots anywhere and smoothed off the edges somewhat.
Making it Watertight
Once Morgan was there, the protective liner and the membrane were taken out of their packaging. There was a little bit of panic when the liner seemed to be very long, but not wide enough. We quickly checked the membrane itself and were relieved to find that it was shorter and wider just as expected. The liner could be cut down to size and used in pieces, the membrane obviously couldn’t.
Once the liner was cut into pieces and placed in the hole we stretched out the membrane and placed that on top of it. It seemed as though was going to be exactly the right size. Just slightly longer than we need and only just wide enough. Almost as though it had been carefully planned and measured rather than just guesstimated!
The membrane would obviously start to push into the various contours as it filled with water which would pull more of it into the pond so it was going to be a close fit in places. Once it started filling I decided it was time to get my feet wet to help push the membrane into the various corners and encourage it to fold in a relatively neat fashion.
Filling it with tap water wasn’t ideal of course, but the water butts are at the other end of the garden. So, although they are currently full of tap water it would have been quite a task to carry watering cans full of rainwater from them. The hose reached fine and was much quicker. Morgan decided it looked quite inviting too so was soon in there having a dip!!
Landscaping
With the pond full it was left to settle for a few days while I fiddled with the liner to get the levels right and started the landscaping We had loads of large pebbles out the front garden. They had been kept when we excavated a hole for the trampoline. The trampoline had now gone and its hole had been refilled. The pebbles had been moved from place to place as I knew they would come in handy one day. Today was that day. With the landscaping started it was beginning to look more like the wildlife pond I had envisaged.
It was also time to re-lay the perimeter wire for Hector the robot mower and test out the jetty. I’m pleased to report it worked well. He trundled onto the jetty, mowing as he went and then stopped and turned around before getting wet!
Next stage will be some planting, more landscaping and then hopefully, watching the plants grow and the wildlife come flocking!
