Pond

little bee

Hi merry gardners I am in need of advice again I have a small wildlife pond which we put in 4 years ago but its now too small & full of plants so I would now like to dig my own (this one is a plastic one) but need to know when is the best time to do this as we dont want to disturb the frogs any help appreciated.😎 

pansyface

Are you planning on lining it with butyl liner?

If so, don’t wait until the weather gets coolin the autumn. It’s much easier to work with in hot weather.

KT53

I agree that a liner is easier to work with when it's warm but it's going to be difficult if not impossible to dig a pond after this long, dry period.  Is the plan to put the new pond where the existing on is?  If not you could dig the new one and then shift the plants to it and take the bugs and beasties with it.  If it's going in the same location you could get a cheap paddling pool, transfer the plants into that temporarily and then put some back into the new pond.

As long as you are careful you shouldn't cause too many problems for frogs as they spend most of their time out of the pond when not breeding.

little bee

Thank you both this is good advice it looks like we need to do it before autum although my partner says he saw tadpoles about 4 weeks ago I'm thinking sept -oct time do we need to save 1 bucket of pond water for the new pond or save as much as we can and whats the best liner to use thanks again 🐝

Lyn

We used this.
https://www.bradshawsdirect.co.uk/pondkraft-polyex-pond-liners-with-free-underlay-and-lifetime-guarantee
Brown side up. Very easy to lay, and a good guarantee.

Hostafan1

Can I suggest you make your pond as big as your garden, energy and budget allow.

Lyn

😀. You’re correct their Hosta, I could have mine 4 times that size, don’t think the digger would have been pleased though.
Here’s  one our friend made!  he didn’t dig it by hand though.😀

little bee

Thanks for link Lyn your pond looks huge I think mine would be at least 3/4 that did it take lots of liner I noticed there liner is mostly 2.5 m wide 🐝

KT53

Butyl liner is available in just about any width you want.  The seams are heat welded.  My pond was 8 feet wide and over 2 feet deep so the liner for that was 13 feet or 4 metres wide.

Lyn

little bee said:

Thanks for link Lyn your pond looks huge I think mine would be at least 3/4 that did it take lots of liner I noticed there liner is mostly 2.5 m wide 🐝

It’s surprising how much you need, you take into account the depth in the middle, if you want a water Lilly you need at least 2’ deep, more if you can.

KT53

Hopefully obvious but it's necessary to add twice the depth of the pool plus about 1 foot to both the length and width to get the overall size required.  The additional foot is to allow for the liner to be tucked under some form of edging.