You can lead water to a pond - doesn’t mean it’s going to stay there.
We’ve had a few enquiries about ponds over the last couple of months, so we’ve been doing a fair bit of research into how to create them! Read on to find out what we’ve discovered…
Sounds easy right? Dig a hole, fill it with water. Hey presto. An oasis for wildlife that also looks like the pinnacle of pastoralism.
Only one slight issue- the newly dug, magical pond you’ve created doesn’t want to hold any water, so all you’re left with is a rather boggy, muddy hole with a bit of water at one end. Now, I could go on and describe all the ecological benefits that the muddy, boggy hole- to give it its proper name, a scrape- can offer, and for some people creating a scrape is absolutely fine- they aren’t concerned with the depth or the aesthetics, but for a lot of people who have dreamed about this beautiful pond that is full year round, it’s not what they’re aiming for- which is also fine.
So, what have we learnt if you want your pond to hold water?
Issue One
In-flow = out-flow. Many people (us included) believed that the best way for a pond to have water in was for the pond to be fed by a stream. Turns out, this isn’t the case. If there is a natural water flow into the pond you’ve created that water is going to want to carry on flowing.
Solution One
Don’t create your pond within an existing water flow. Create it so that the pond is only fed by ground water and surface run off (rainwater to you and me).
Issue two
Your soil matters, or to be more exact, the type of soil matters. If you want your soil to hold the water, you need clay soil. To find out if you’ve got clay, you can complete a few simple field tests (the clay tends to be a few layers down so you might need to keep digging).
Firstly, clay is greyer in colour; the next step is to get a small handful (it needs to be wet) and roll it into a ball. The ball should be fairly solid and be firm when you try to squish it. Next, roll it into a sausage. Again, the soil sausage shouldn’t break and when held upright should hold its shape.
Lastly, you can test your soil using the jar test. Fill a jam-jar about half full of soil, then fill it with water and a squeeze of washing-up liquid. Shake the jar hard and leave overnight. The next day you will see the makeup of your soil. The sand and silt will rest at the bottom of the jar with the clay on top and the water filling up the remaining space.
Solution Two
Prevention rather than cure is the best method. Digging some test pits and monitoring how they hold water will give you the best idea. Autumn is a good time to do this as the increase in rainfall should fill the test-pits more quickly.
Issue three
It’s going to take some time. Like with anything to do with nature, it’s best not to rush things. For the first year or two it might not look like quite how you imagined it but rushing and introducing new species is probably not the best way to go about it; you could end up with a dominate species taking over.
Solution three
Be patient.
