Converting fish pond to wildlife pond

[Gareth Watson]

Morning all,
I've recently moved into a new house (new to us not new new) which had a pretty sorry for itself pond in the back garden. It's sort of a double oval shaped thing, about 3 metres long by 1.8 metres wide, the small oval is shallow, about 20cm and the larger part of the pond is about 60-70cm deep. The pond is edged by paving slabs which have all worked their way loose.

I'm not really interested in having a fish pond, I'm much more interested in the wildlife that I could encourage into our garden. Therefore I'm keen to turn the pond into a wildlife pond.

I've already done some reading about what is necessary, and I know how I know how i would like the pond to look, however I would like advice from the collective brain of the Garden Pond Forum. I would like a shallow edge for pond life to crawl in and out of, but apart from the small shallow area, the rest of the pond has vertical sides to it. I plan to lift the paving slabs and the cracking mortar that was holding them in which will lower the edge slightly, but I need some suggestions for getting the nice easy to climb edge. I had thought about putting some bricks/breeze blocks around the edge in the water and building soil up on top of them - this would also give me somewhere convenient for my marginal plants.

Has anyone attempted this before?

I'll try to get some photos at the weekend as I realise my description will build up a different picture for everyone.

 

[addy1]

Welcome to our group!

There are a couple members here with wildlife ponds, fishless. Frogs will live in anything with water. If you have turtles, they like to have a crawl out ability. I have land turtles, made areas for them to be able to get out of the ponds, ow they drown.

You could add something like pea gravel to the bottom of the pond for plants to grow in, stack various sizes of rocks around the edge for climbing out.

Is the pond a liner or a preform, i.e. hard plastic type material

 

[Gareth Watson]

It's a pond liner.

I've contemplated emptying, removing the liner, building the hole up to a shape I want then refitting the liner, but this seems a pretty drastic solution, especially as I don#t want to disturb the newts and snails that are already in there.

I would like turtles, but they wouldn't be able to escape the safety net, frogs and the like will be able to get through the holes (safety net is mandatory for my wife's childminding).

 

[addy1]

You could take one side of the pond, edge, pull it back. You may need to lower some of the water, not empty the pond. Add some dirt, behind the liner, to make some shelves that you can stack rocks on inside of the pond.

 

[tbendl]

Hi Gareth, I have a wildlife pond, ie no fish. My pond was already dig in when I bought my house so I have pretty steep sides as well. I have milk crates and a few concrete blocks as ledges for plants. I have also seen people build floating islands out of wall board for turtles and fogs and birds to land on. They can be anchored so they don't float around. If you are wanting turtles, @Mmathis would be the one to talk to since she has them. I have frogs and dragonflies and birds visit with the steep sides. Good luck and can't wait for pictures!

 

[JBtheExplorer]

I would like a shallow edge for pond life to crawl in and out of, but apart from the small shallow area, the rest of the pond has vertical sides to it. I had thought about putting some bricks/breeze blocks around the edge in the water and building soil up on top of them - this would also give me somewhere convenient for my marginal plants.

I think what you need is just a plant shelf.

You can see here that I made the shelf go all the way around my pond, but you can just do it on one side too. I did roughly 10-12" deep but if I were to redo it I think I'd lower it a couple more. The width of the shelf is really up to you. Mine was 12" because I wanted to make sure the pots would fit comfortably, without having to worry of them tipping into the bottom.

 

[sissy]

There are a couple of video's on you tube of wild life ponds .

 

[j.w]

Gareth

 

[Meyer Jordan]

With the pond being netted, all you need to be concerned about is frogs and other amphibians. The netting will effectively keep away anything larger. Stacking some flat stone against the pond wall in the shallow end will provide all that is needed for entry and egress.

 

[Gareth Watson]

Yeah I think I'm going to make the shallow end as easy to get in and out as possible and see how it goes with the wildlife.

I'll use whatever I can find to create a planting shelf around the back edge to get a decent selection of marginals, and then I'm going to have to play it by ear a bit I think with the edging of the pond, I'd really like it to look as natural as possible, but it might be difficult when someone else has already made a mess of it.

Wish me luck.

 

[addy1]

If you have mosquitoes make sure you either have water movement or some minnows in the pond, to keep them under control.

 

[tbendl]

I made "sissy socks" to hold both rocks and plants on some of my more vertical walls. They are easy to make and have allowed me to camouflage the liner really well. You can search for them on the forum and see how they are made with screen. We need some pictures so we can offer more suggestions + we like pond pictures!