O.K. this isn't my pond but it's the one I walked past yesterday morning. It was incredibly noisy with such a mixture of birds. Apparently there has been a peregrin there eating the chicks but I couldn't see it. (Oh - dont forget to click to view)

Well I have my pond dug and lined. Sadly it's only 4ft8in by 5ft5in. But it is looking good. We fixed the fountain up today, and filled the pond up with water. We will leave this for a while before putting anything in it. Hopefully I will have some frogs, although I don't think there are any ponds around. If I don't have frogs then I will have to go and steal some frogs spawn from somewhere!!!!!!!! Is there any chemicals that we can get to take the chlorine out of the water, or have I just got to wait a while. What about when it needs topping up, if there isn't any chemicals around??????

Size isn't important it's how you manage it, our last pond wasn't much bigger & some spring evenings we could count 50 frogs, Enjoy.

Our Tiny pond.



And some of the fish

OOOhh what a lovely little pond - love all the bits and pieces round it

Sorry kenowl,
I missed your question re filling the pond, we always topped ours up with tap water & had no problem, I would imagine a lot will depend on the number of plants you have that can take any additives out of the water & also how much you top it up by, little & often sounds good as the chemicals disappear after a couple of days as far as I know. The other thing is a water butt, the only problem here can be if you let it stand for a long time in warm weather without using it & algae builds up I think we lost a couple of mirror carp once when we used a whole water butt to top up the pond.
My biggest problem when we had 1,000s of tadpoles was remembering to turn off the water & washing tadpoles out of the pond then trying to rescue as many as I could. you may find the fish find the tadpoles good food, in the end we opted for frogs, but our carp were getting to be a reasonable size & had big appetites. A friend has smaller fish but lots of them so has a similar problem.
I wish you lots of pleasure with it, great to see someone making the effort to fit a pond into a small space; they are very relaxing & beautiful if you get some nice plants as well. Keep Irises in pots or sacks as they spread & will dominate, avoid Bull rush although I would think you would any way again they take over. Don’t be afraid to clear out a lot of plants after a year or so if any are taking over but try & let them drain back into the pond so pond life can drop back into the pond.
Dave

janowl Wrote:Well I have my pond dug and lined. Sadly it's only 4ft8in by 5ft5in. But it is looking good. We fixed the fountain up today, and filled the pond up with water. We will leave this for a while before putting anything in it. Hopefully I will have some frogs, although I don't think there are any ponds around. If I don't have frogs then I will have to go and steal some frogs spawn from somewhere!!!!!!!! Is there any chemicals that we can get to take the chlorine out of the water, or have I just got to wait a while. What about when it needs topping up, if there isn't any chemicals around??????

Well done, a lot of hard work but it will be worth it. I think that's more or less the same size as ours. It's a good size because they do take a bit of maintaining so you don't want it too big. Also they look smaller, funnily enough, when they are new and barren. When we first filled ours the water went green after a few days, but it does sort itself out and clear again. We do just as Red Kite does and top up little and often and put the right sort of plants in. Frogs will appear as if from nowhere, you'll see. I bet you will have them spawning in your pond in March and will not have any need to steal any

I have posted several photos of my friends' (Sue and Gordon) pond but never my little watery offering!
I have a small 70's estate bungalow so my garden is not that big but I managed to put this little water feature in! The little half barrel (plastic) is a hive of little water creatures even down to frogs/toads but never any spawn! They must come from somewhere else! I have two different kind of iris in there and a couple of grassy plants too. There are no fish in it! I have to keep the mesh over it as Meg, my dog, drinks it dry otherwise! Yes! I do provide her with water but she prefers that!!!!
The little pebble feature was because I wanted to be able to sit quietly and hear water so it has a fountain in it! There is always room somewhere for a water feature however small the garden. I have even had dragon/damsel flies around it!

(This post was last modified: 05-08-08, 09:35 AM by ledburylass.)

Great Chris, shows what you can do in a small space & the birds & insects will love it as well.

Red Kite Wrote:Size isn't important it's how you manage it, our last pond wasn't much bigger & some spring evenings we could count 50 frogs, Enjoy.

Yeah, when we lived in Kent, there were never any less than 30, at any one time. I hope the frogs find my little pond, although I don't know how.

Osprey Wrote:

janowl Wrote:Well I have my pond dug and lined. Sadly it's only 4ft8in by 5ft5in. But it is looking good. We fixed the fountain up today, and filled the pond up with water. We will leave this for a while before putting anything in it. Hopefully I will have some frogs, although I don't think there are any ponds around. If I don't have frogs then I will have to go and steal some frogs spawn from somewhere!!!!!!!! Is there any chemicals that we can get to take the chlorine out of the water, or have I just got to wait a while. What about when it needs topping up, if there isn't any chemicals around??????

Well done, a lot of hard work but it will be worth it. I think that's more or less the same size as ours. It's a good size because they do take a bit of maintaining so you don't want it too big. Also they look smaller, funnily enough, when they are new and barren. When we first filled ours the water went green after a few days, but it does sort itself out and clear again. We do just as Red Kite does and top up little and often and put the right sort of plants in. Frogs will appear as if from nowhere, you'll see. I bet you will have them spawning in your pond in March and will not have any need to steal any

Oooooo I do hope so. I love the little things. Except when you pick them up and they weeee all down you. LOL We saw a small dragon fly the other day, so they have got the message, and I hope they tell all the frogs and things HEHE

Wow, a dragon fly. That's great. We usually get quite a few of them but I've yet to see one this year. Must be the bad weather keeping them away

Gt the pump going and then I have put some oxygenating plants in the pond. Need to get some more plants but it already looks better.

Hi Janowl, that's great. I was wondering how you were getting on. It won't be long now until your wildlife starts moving in.

Osprey Wrote:Hi Janowl, that's great. I was wondering how you were getting on. It won't be long now until your wildlife starts moving in.

Hope so. I just want lots of frogs.I'm going to try and get a little waterfall set up as well. We have a pre-made one, and we found that we had wild life settling in behind it, as it was slightly raised.By the time it has plants growing around it, it should be a nice place for a few frogs to hide.