Show me your pond!

[canalsiderenovation]

I know we have a canal, but we are thinking of putting in a wildlife pond... obviously no fish with the heron, kingfishers etc but more to attract wildlife don't want any pumps or anything....so, show me your ponds please?

 

@ToughButterCup I saw a couple of pics of your pond on a previous thread. Do you have any more pics of it, especially as you were doing it.

[Russdl]

Following with interest, my boss says she wants a pond as well. 

[Russell griffiths]

just messing.  
get your spade out, you would need to shift a few tonnes to get a pond like my one. 
serious photo to follow when I can find one. 

[Russdl]

I think my plot would fit nicely into that pond 🤣

[Russell griffiths]

still probably too big for what you would need, not sure if it gives the right feel though. 
about as natural as it gets. 
my friend has a wildlife pond he dug and used a liner, I will see if he has any pics. 
he’s the type of bloke who would have researched it for a year first. 

 

[ToughButterCup]

 Not much need for commentary : the pond is fed entirely from the roof run off. (SUDS)

Cost? Absolutely everything inclusive : £5 or 6 hundred. Tops

The sand (bulk bags)  in the photo below is 'buried' under the garden as a filter for the roof run off. Its been working hard recently 😑

This is where that pipe in the photo above runs into the pond.

Overflow from here  into the pond in the field below our site ( The one with the GCNs in )

 

[Roger440]

I didnt build this. Fed off barn roof. Clay lined. 4m deep.

 

Sadly, was entirely surrounded by rushes. Slowly eliminating and replacing with other stuff. But its big, so years of work

 

 

[Roger440]

On 26/03/2026 at 08:13, ToughButterCup said:

 

The sand (bulk bags)  in the photo below is 'buried' under the garden as a filter for the roof run off. Its been working hard recently 😑

 

 

What are you "filtering out"?

[ToughButterCup]

8 hours ago, Roger440 said:

What are you "filtering out"?

 

Nothing. Cos I'mAdickHead. I just followed the SUDS guidelines: they said

' ... use a sand bed to filter the run off ...'

 

So I did.

Instead of thinking about it - what could possibly come off the roof that would need to be filtered? 

 

Nowt.

 

Thinking about it a bit, the pH of the sand might affect the water a bit but apparently not to it's detriment. For the last few years we regularly see four or five GCNs feeding on rising Dragonflies emerging from their underwater stage: stuck in the surface tension for just long enough to provide a meal. The sand also provides a nice wet area for the Dogwood roots. 

 

But we have no need for sand at all. 

[Roundtuit]

Wildlife pond.  2 years and 2 months between pics.

[Roger440]

2 hours ago, Roundtuit said:

Wildlife pond.  2 years and 2 months between pics.

How did you get your water lilys to grow that fast!

[Roundtuit]

8 hours ago, Roger440 said:

How did you get your water lilys to grow that fast!

That's the only one of three that made decent progress, and that's still probably the case 3 years on tbh.  I did make an early mistake of using garden soil for some planting, so maybe a nutrient overdose.

[Nickfromwales]

23 hours ago, Roger440 said:

I didnt build this. Fed off barn roof. Clay lined. 4m deep.

 

Sadly, was entirely surrounded by rushes. Slowly eliminating and replacing with other stuff. But its big, so years of work

 

 

I hope you’ve got the drawbridge working? 🤔😆. 

[saveasteading]

I built a pond once as SUDS, fir an office block, with all the roof and driveway water pipes ending up there for exceptional rain. Ie after natural drainage, rainwater harvester and French drains any surplus went in there.

We had a 'nature' consultant who advised that we did no planting or species thinking at all, and let nature do it. Although he did say plant sone miniature willows to help drink the water.

Nature took about 2 years, during which time the LA nature staff complained about the "typical builder, leaving a muddy hole behind" but were won over.

 

Another time I would do the same if it was distant from the building but omit the willows as they took over and needed maintenance.

If near to  the house I might compromise and have some pretty planting, and a shallows, and a gravelly pretty feature.

 

Nature did indeed move in. The advisor had said we would get newts or frogs or fish.....only one would prevail. It was common newts. The plants that moved in were attractive enough. Maintenance nil apart from the planted trees and sone other 'weed' trees.

 

No sand liner!  That seems pointless. The people who wrote these LA guidelines back then seemed to be tree huggers with little real knowledge.

 

As to lining it. For SUDS you want to let it empty, and nature will deal with the seasonal  changes, so no lining.

For a garden feature everything is different.

 

[saveasteading]

19 hours ago, Roger440 said:

How did you get your water lilys to grow that fast

I've got an ornamental pond (brick and liner). 3 lilies on baskets on the bottom in year one. Gradually one bullied the other two. Now one lives in the bottom sludge, and the removal of leaves keeps the nutrient down and the mass of leaves keeps the summer heat out.

3 fish became about 60 and they appear to live in harmony.

[Roger440]

10 hours ago, saveasteading said:

I've got an ornamental pond (brick and liner). 3 lilies on baskets on the bottom in year one. Gradually one bullied the other two. Now one lives in the bottom sludge, and the removal of leaves keeps the nutrient down and the mass of leaves keeps the summer heat out.

3 fish became about 60 and they appear to live in harmony.

 

Not having much success with lillies

 

 

[Roger440]

20 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

I hope you’ve got the drawbridge working? 🤔😆. 

 

Sadly not. Its on the to do list. Theres power there, but the winch motor is seized, and the cable was down to just a couple of strands. Need to buy a new winch and swap it out. But need to get the scaff tower over there. So a summer job when ground is hard(ish) Ie last year

[saveasteading]

3 hours ago, Roger440 said:

Not having much success with lilies

not what I meant to say. The lily that wiped out the others is perfectly attractive and successful. it takes a bit of maintenance though, to remove the dying leaves and flower heads.

In a wild pond Id just let it take over and the fish would have to learn to find some oxygenated water between the leaves.

As with many plants, the white flowered version prevails.

I used to scoop out the sludge annually but have found it to have come to a steady state, and I think the fish get sustenance from it through the winter.

The odd thing with the fish (Sarasa Comets) is that I've seen hundreds of pretty little ones over the years but only ever 3 floaters to dispose of... the dead ones must sink and dissolve into the sludge.

each spring I remove the forest of roots that hang from the edge shelving plants, because the fish scoosh their eggs in there, and I prefer a dozen fish reaching maturity to hundreds. I assume that loose eggs and tiny hatchlings are eaten

 

 

[Roger440]

8 hours ago, saveasteading said:

not what I meant to say. The lily that wiped out the others is perfectly attractive and successful. it takes a bit of maintenance though, to remove the dying leaves and flower heads.

In a wild pond Id just let it take over and the fish would have to learn to find some oxygenated water between the leaves.

As with many plants, the white flowered version prevails.

I used to scoop out the sludge annually but have found it to have come to a steady state, and I think the fish get sustenance from it through the winter.

The odd thing with the fish (Sarasa Comets) is that I've seen hundreds of pretty little ones over the years but only ever 3 floaters to dispose of... the dead ones must sink and dissolve into the sludge.

each spring I remove the forest of roots that hang from the edge shelving plants, because the fish scoosh their eggs in there, and I prefer a dozen fish reaching maturity to hundreds. I assume that loose eggs and tiny hatchlings are eaten

 

 

 

Thanks.

 

One thing i dont have is fish. Before we owned this place, there were fish, but then the otters moved in.

 

There are however thousands of frogs and toads!

[saveasteading]

1 minute ago, Roger440 said:

thousands of frogs and toads!

The nature person was a rare unsentimental type. He said that in a wild pond, fish eat tadpoles,  or newts eat fish and tadpoles, and frogs /toads dominate through numbers if they get a chance.

Then the pond can flood or disappear. Fish need water, frogs can sometimes hide, but newts move off for most of the year and return when conditions allow and hormones dictate.

Natural fish arrive as eggs on the feet of birds and you only need two.

So build the pond and let them and the plants get on with it he said.

[Roger440]

4 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

The nature person was a rare unsentimental type. He said that in a wild pond, fish eat tadpoles,  or newts eat fish and tadpoles, and frogs /toads dominate through numbers if they get a chance.

Then the pond can flood or disappear. Fish need water, frogs can sometimes hide, but newts move off for most of the year and return when conditions allow and hormones dictate.

Natural fish arrive as eggs on the feet of birds and you only need two.

So build the pond and let them and the plants get on with it he said.

 

The frogs and toads are certainly doing the domination bit! Its nuts.

 

Been hoping some fish might appear, but alas, not to be it seems.

 

I think the previous owner did indeed do just that, let it sort itself out. On the plant side, all we got was rushes and willows. Which is pretty much what any pond locally gets if left to its own devices.

 

Right or wrong, we are adding some other plants progressively especially round the margins. No plastic liner so nature can do what it will do. Still dont know what to do with the island as that seems to be a thistle and hogweed development zone. And rushes.