The original greenhouse
This was the site that was chosen for the new pond…
The new pond marked out We marked it out using hose pipe. Even afterwards, we didn’t really fully comprehend how big the pond was going to be
new pond dug out Here’s the pond. It measures approximately eight metres by five, steps down to the bottom in about 35cm steps to a depth of about a metre …
new pond dug 2 … took about a week or so of both of us working like lunatics, barrowing the spoil about 100 metres from our garden to the car park where the skip was…
Never again

For a number of weeks I persevered with cleaning out the pond filters on a daily basis, but there came a point when I realised all was not well with the pond. The pump got choked with crud and I spent nearly an hour cleaning it out while worrying whether the pond had killed this extremely expensive pump and would I ever get it working again. So, having spent hundreds just on the pump never mind the filtration system, it was a bit of a disappointment to admit that no matter how much we more money or time we spent, it just wasn’t going to work. We would never have a clear pond.

The decision was made to close this pond down after we’d created a new one further down the garden.

This wasn’t a decision that was taken lightly. After all, there was no way to get a digger down the side path — even a mini digger. The new pond would have to be dug out by hand, or at least, spade and that was going to take time and a Herculean effort from both of us.

We took some time to decide where the pond would go, it’s approximate shape and by using a hose pipe, we laid out a kidney shape on the grass and cut into the soil with a spade all the way round. We took care to consider wildlife, especially herons. These in Dorset are numerous and we had heard tales of people’s ponds being decimated by the blighters.

Nevertheless, we soldiered on, dug the pond, moved the spoil and eventually, put in the liner. Meanwhile, at the other end of the garden, the filters were still having to be cleaned on an almost daily basis, the pond wasn’t clearing — no surprise there — and more to the point, we didn’t know how many fish or other “things” might be in the pond…

fill her up
With the pond liner in place, it’s time to fill her up…
With the pond dug, the liner in place, it was time to fill the new pond — at least partially; we would be filling up the rest of the way with water pumped straight out of the original pond in a couple of days after the water we’d filled it with had attained the correct temperature.

Curiously, I’d only got about six inches of water in the new pond when an enterprising beetle buzzed past my ear and plopped straight into the water!