"Roz Cawley" wrote in message
...
I was thrilled when I had a new wildlife pond and bog garden installed a
couple of weeks ago - but not so thrilled to see that the landscape
gardener had lined the pond with the subsoil that he had excavated from
"the hole" - because our subsoil happens to be horrible, yellow clay,
unlike the better, though sandy topsoil that he buried/left in a heap at
the side of the garden :-((.

If I am understanding you to say that he put a liner in and then covered it
with dirt, the first thing you need to do is stop payment on that check.

Two weeks later, and the pond water still has a murky, yellow cloudiness
- which I assume is the suspension of fine clay particles still floating
around in it.

Very likely. See google for threads on my orange water.

Questions - will it finally settle more (am I just being impatient?), or
am I doomed to cloudy water unless I drain the pond, scrape out the clay
and add another layer of larger particle topsoil?

It will settle with time, measured in weeks. I finally let mine alone and it
went gin clear. Now, my water is only murkey when I am messing with the
pond, which I try not to do, but end up doing every free moment that I get.

To avoid this, is there any sort of flocculent that I can add to the
water to help to clear it - or will even that only be a temporary
measure?

Calcite, or common garden lime as it is called in the big do it yourself
stores, will act as floc. I tried it with some mixes results. I am not sure
I would do it again. It helped but not enough to make it worth it to me.
Then again, I may have under dosed.
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