On 18 Sep 2005 09:18:26 -0700, wrote:

Hi All

I'm currently digging a large wildlife pond (approx 30 feet by 20),
using an excavator. I've started by scraping a lot of the soil from the
middle to the sides, with the intention of getting rid of the soil
either elsewhere in the garden or into the skip. But it's occurred to
me that the growing mound around the pond is rather attractive, and if
used as part of the actual sides of the pond, would mean I wouldn't
have to dig so deep. In other words, if I dig out a foot of soil and
bank it up by a foot, then in effect I have a 2 foot pond, with the
level of the water above ground level. This would be very convenient as
I wouldn't have to get rid of so much soil.

Is there a problem with this idea? For instance, would the pressure of
the water push out the sides? Would the banking compact down in time,
leading to an overflow? Is it a bit odd to have the water level
somewhere round your knees? What could I do with the banking -
grass-seed it? Turf it? Would it make it hard to hide the liner?

As you can see, there are quite a few unknowns here. Has anyone done
this sort of thing?

Thank you very much in advance,

Will

I'm planning much the same thing and am following your various
questions with interest! My site slopes very slightly, so the uphill
edge will be cut down and the lower edge will be banked. I intend to
give the banking a core of stone, rubble, old concrete etc. to give it
weight and strength, and cover it with soil which I will compact well
to reduce settlement. The lower part will in fact be a bog garden
connected to the pond.

I have a Titchmarsh video on how to make a pond (IIRC recorded from
his TV series 'How to be a Gardener'). In it he runs his liner up to
the top of the edges/banks and pegs it at regular intervals with tent
peg type things (_after_ filling it with water). He then uses turves
to cover the edge and hold it down, with the lower edge of the turf
strip actually just in the water. The key point is that the edge of
the strip of liner shouldn't be too far up above the water level, say
about 6 or 8 inches at most. In this way, the bit of turf on top of
the liner draws its moisture from the pond itself, while the bit of
turf further up is in contact with the underlying soil and gets its
moisture in the normal way. Too wide a strip of liner would mean that
a bit of the turf between the ends mightn't get moisture from either
direction.

I'm not yet sure how I will do my edges. A problem I foresee with
Titch's method is when it comes to cutting the edge. Obviously one
can't use a mower, and a strimmer will put all the strimmings into the
water. I will probably use concrete slabs for the upper part where the
edge will be on solid ground (I have a surplus that I'm keen to use
up), and rough stone for the lower part on the bank and surrounding
the bog garden.

However, it's still only at the planning stage, so I'll be interested
to see other people's comments.


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net