Tumbleweed muttered:


"Magwitch" wrote in message
...
clokemg muttered:


I am planning to put a pond in the garden. After digging out the
foundations for a large shed I have decided that I want to hire a
digger to create the hole. Does anyone have any advice on the
following....

1. Good websites on creating a wildlife friendly pool.

I got my pond plants from these people about 2 years ago and now I'd say I
have a fully functional natural pond habitat:

https://secure4.worldsites.net/wetla...merchant.ihtml

However, I'd advise putting in a liner, we trusted our clay and the first
year it was fine but over the following winter the frost developed cracks
and the water level fluctuates more than I'd like.


2. Where to hire a digger from? (I live near the NEC near Birmingham)

Yellow pages? In Suffolk they cost about £60 per day.

3. Are they easy/able to be operated yourself or is it best to hire a
man to go with it.

You'd only need a mini digger and I think it takes about a day or two to
get
really competent. Just make sure they supervise you when they deliver and
ask them about anything you aren't sure about. Try not to overload the
bucket and don't go too deep!

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Mark (First year gardener with big plans!)



Only advice I'd add is to decide where the spoil will go or if you need a
skip to get rid of it. IME the waste from a hole is about 3x the volume of
the hole :-)

We piled it up into a banked plateau overlooking the pond which has (a year
later) grassed up nicely. We'll probably build a sort of summer house or
arbour on it when we can afford it. If the OP wishes to do this move the
pond forward a bit to make room.

Also be brave and make the pond as big as possible - what looks like a huge
scar in the ground when empty, looks a lot smaller when it's filled with
water and has plants growing in and around it.