my little ponds

You have lots of great ideas :o)

Very inventive !!

Their Great Rich :)

the amphibians will appreciate the landing stones.

The best things in life are free ;-))

You are a master od ideas Richard!!!!!. I was thinking along similar lines. I have an old tin bath, thats been in the garden for years, and I may be able to obtain one of the old heavy white porclain sinks. I was think.ing of making a pond with one of these for my new wildlife area. But I dint know what to line them with. I also don't know if you can put a pond in semi shade or total shade. What do you think? Your daughters offereings look really good.

That is great! I hope you get some wildlife soon. I have at least 25 common newts in my small pond. It is a little larger than yours but not a lot. I found one of my three frogs had died this winter but have already seen one of the others. My granddaughter loves this pond Always has.

Please songthrush put up a photo. Im thinking of making one to go in my wildlife area.

They look great well done i have two ponds with like a bridge across them and they look like one big pond.

Thank you very much all for your comments I really appreciate the feedback.

These ponds are in semi shade under some bushes Great. As they are not is the sun hopefully I shouldn't get too much algae in them. If it was me I would sink the tin bath in the ground and paint the inside black not sure which paint to use which is wildlife safe-hammerite maybe?
The frog is still around my ponds Songthrush!
Thanks Clarice -have you got a photo of your pond? :-)

what a great idea richard and so glad i got you thinking of having a pond, the wildlife will appresiate it im sure, you can get something to go in to help keep clear, barley or something in a small bundle, clarice will tell you as she uses it, well done you ;o))

Thanks for the inspiration to make the ponds Sandra! I have a fountain in the garden and the water in that is cloudy -I wondered how to keep it clear. I will have a look for Clarice's blog or something like that to see what she does :-)

my water feature i had also had a fountain but was fine, my pond has a filter and that keeps it clear but as i planted and when pebbles got washed with rain it now has dirt in pond but its ok, the dirt just makes it more natural and covers the black liner on bottom and marginal shelf, so i can live with that ;o))

Will you be putting any fish in there Sandra. I wondered about a few minnows or stickleback type fish and getting some aerating plants. I have a frog around there already :-)

not sure as its about 14inches deep, carol (clarice) said she had her goldfish in her small pond for about 5 years and were ok, so maybe , im hoping my toads and frogs come back in garden this year richard ;o)

I have just put a sink into my wildlife area all I have done is put it on its side with a couple of plants in it.I am just going to leave it like that it has allready collected some rain water.I do get frogs passing through to neighbouring ponds so it might do as a resting place for them.

The frogs and toads should help keep the slug and snail population down Sandra.
Good idea with the sink Mavis have you any plants on the top of the sink too?

No, not yet I was thinking of trailing lobelia as you always seem to have some left but a more permanent idea was campanula.The sink is also near my trellis which has a Honeysuckle next to it which might be persuaded to trail over it.

your right they do richard, i didnt have any probs with either last year so im hoping for the same again this year ;o)

Please Mavis a picture

Richard i use barley straw, what Sandra was on about, but Sandra like me have got a really good pond pump as its three in one called easy clear, and as fountain,pump and filter in one but for your little pond i would make my own filter, in my smaller pond at back end of last year i made a water fall got a cheap fountain for about £13 then put a bit of hose pipe from the fountain to come down some stones at the bottom and under the stones i also got a old pop sock put a few little sones in it and then put a small piece of sponge on top of the stones that are in the pop sock then put little bits of slate i had and its surprising how clean the water stays. i will go and take a photo of my little pond for you to see how clean it is.

Great..... pictures are difficult for me at the minute as soon as I can I will take one,I am hoping to get a camera later this month.

Thanks Clarice I will see what I can do to keep the pond clear then-I appreciate your advice the 'sock filter' sounds ingenious:-).
I get a few slugs and snails in the garden Sandra but not too bad I suppose :-)
I am growing some trailing lobelia Mavis waiting for it to germinate at present:-)
The sun was out here today but it was quite cold again.

Your welcome cold here today aswell.

richard my lobelia germinated already within a week, cant believe it ;o))

Lobelia is so versatile isn't it Sandra- it looks good in a clump or in a hanging basket or pot, or with other flowers. I have a few different types growing this year. Yours is so quick germinating :-)

yes your right, mine lasted well into oct last year in my border, so im hoping for a good show this year to ;o)) they were quick, must be the heat from the sun in the small room

I found that Sandra- if you can get a little amount of heat it makes a great difference to the speed of germinating. I have some chilli seeds and they were much quicker germinating on the window ledge in the spare bedroom which has a lot of sun than outside-I am still waiting for those...lol :-)

lol richard, ;o)

Great idea, Richard - I have a mop bucket that's now redundant, and lots of plasic buckets of assorted sizes (the sort popcorn and candyfloss are sold in!). Never occurred to me to make a "pond complex" out of them before.

I have a baby bath that I found, intend to use as a pond (it's just full of rainwater at the moment) - glad to see you have "escape ladders", I've been trying to find something to stand in the bath to serve for now.

My main prob is my mini garden space is all paved, so the pond will have to be insulated on the sides and bottom to help prevent it freezing from all directions at once! And I'll have to place plants round it to hide the base - and smaller ones to hide those planters, and yet smaller ones ... etc.

Sounds great Fran...I used to like going out in the garden and looking at them to see if I could find the frogs. It was good to see the different insects around there too.

The ponds are not there now as they split one winter. I will have to redo them sometime. Thanks for popping in and looking at my post :-)

as you used concrete for another project, would a coat of that on the plastic help to insulate/protect them? *s* you could make your own free-form design!

No I don't think it would Fran as it doesn't really stick to the sides of the plastic. I always have plenty of old plastic bowls and buckets with broken handles around so it would be just as easy to make a new pond/s

well, use them as moulds to make an all-concrete pond? of course it'd weigh an awful lot more!

It would Fran hope it all turns out well for you...

thanks, daer. hope I'll get round to it sometime this century!

Haha I know the feeling well :-)