Every garden needs a pond. In addition to any aesthetic benefits, ponds provide a habitat for many forms of wildlife and help to increase the biodiversity of the garden.

When we moved to the cottage we found a large, partly rotted, ash tree stump in the main area of ‘lawn’. We had the stump ground down and were in a bit uncertain how to incorporate the area back into the garden as it was, in effect, a large unstable hole full of bark clippings. Purely by chance, while out on a dog walk, I discovered a used rigid plastic pond liner ‘free to a good home’. Definitely a chance too good to miss. We dug out the rest of the stump, lined the hole with builders sand and a good layer of old carpet. The liner went into the hole and the gap was back filled with more sand.

It is really important and definitely worth taking some time to make sure that the liner is level in all directions. Once level it was filled with water and left to settle for a couple of days.

The fun bit of course is the planting and landscaping to make it look as natural as possible. We spent a long time laying out stones around the edge to try to hide as much of the liner as possible. The picture below is the pond after one year – not bad …..

The pond is teeming with wildlife. Dragonflies and damselflies are regular visitors and water boatmen skip across the surface. We added a few goldfish and they seem to be thriving, as evidenced by the appearance of 12 – 15 juvenile goldfish this spring.