new pond ambition

How do the critters climb up 4 layers of sleepers to get into the pond.

 

Thanks for your reply. We'll my original plan was to have a door way at the end of critter slope but someone asked about the depth and the water of the pond.
So I readjusted the pond to get the depth
The sleepers are 3.9 inch thick so I suppose I could use eg plants. Rocks. Inside of pond and platform on out side of pond or more rocks. As a door way won't be atchiveable due to the underlay / liner going up and over of the sleepers

 

Some very interesting ideas on pond designs. It looks like you are starting to make progress Gizmo . A raised pond can work as a wildlife pond so long as you provide an entrance and exit route. A plank of wood to create a ramp or even a pile of rocks next to the pond to make stepping stones. To get out of the pond you could just do the same. My preformed pond has rocks piled up at one end of it to make an exit. Being at ground level there is more risk of hedgehogs, rats, mice, etc, falling in. With a raised pond the risk is less but still possible as hedgehogs in particular are quite good climbers and could climb a plank ramp or stone pile. I personally would not rely on plant baskets/ pots as a means of escape as they could be toppled over by a struggling animal trying to get out.

I've been thinking of doing something similar with my own pond venture but using all soil to raise the level up. I've got 16-18" of soil before hitting bedrock in my garden. To make it deeper I would need a kango hammer. I already have a new pond hole that is 16" deep and that will be less again after underlay and liner go in. I'm thinking that piling up soil around the edges will give me another foot of so. Not sure how it will look from an aesthetic point though . Have to work on that

 

Thanks for your reply. We had a 6 x 4 foot x 16 inch raised pond with waterfall cascade before and it got covered in alge and to us didn't look nice. And all though we used plants. Uv filter. Barley straw. We could not get rid of the alge
So we decided to try and make a pond. For wildlife as it was our dream to have more wildlife in the garden.
I don't expect to get hedgehogs as we have got bamboo fence screens all around the fence and what we understand is that hedgehogs go from garden to garden.
With the idea of ramp for critters we have got some left over cut offs from sleepers? That could go on the outside of pond and rocks on the inside of pond.
Someone else said about plants and alge and how hard it was to get clear water. I don't expect crystal clear water but also I don't want green water.
Thanks

 

Well, I'm feeling like I've just won the lottery....

Vaccuming the pond just came to a sudden halt, when I saw that a cluster of frog spawn was settled in the deepest part of the pond. I checked that nothing had been hoovered up and packed the vacuum away. I'm going to get some tadpole food - I'm not sure that the debris already in the bottom of the pond is enough for the taddies to eat.

Turns out that Freddie may well have been Fredrica....

There were also some water beetle looking critters - I'm well chuffed

 

Got three large lumps of spawn in my pond, but keep getting visits from a heron and I think it is getting a few of the frogs.

 

send doing a update for pond , at the moment the pond over all is 6 x 5 foot x 25 inch deep .
now i am thinking of liner and underlay .. i could put on 1 more layer of sleepers as my wife cannot reach the top of veg box due to her height and chest so i could take down the veg box to the orignal 4 layer height . so pond deep would be 29 inch
at the moment i am thinking not only the liner etc but the water feature as i wanted it in side the sleeper but cutting a space out for water feature will be a challenge .
thanks

 

Personally I'd put the liner in as it is now then overlap the liner onto the top of the sleepers all round.
Then fill the pond with water, and after the liner has settled into place put the other sleepers on top and fix down through the overlapped liner into the sleepers below.

Or doing slightly different and perhaps better, put the other sleepers on top now, if you really think you need to move them, and do the same thing putting the liner over the top of the sleepers then after filling with water go round and put decking boards around the top to finish it off.

 

Not sure what kind of water feature you have planned.

Cant see how you can cut, easily, into the side without all the water running out.

 

Thanks for the reply I am hoping to put in water blade feature at the back of the pond.
If the pond sleepers are either. 4 or 5 high the water. Level would only be to the level below
Eg pond is 5 sleeper high the water. Level would be at sleeper 4.
That was the idea but I am no good at DIY
I do like the idea of decking to finish pond off but untill I look about unsure high wide. Decking would be or if it would hang over etc

 

What is a water blade feature?

A sleeper depth is quite a bit low, below the top, for the water level IMO, I'd go for it just the thickness of a piece of decking below the finished top, and overhang the decking by a inch or so to stop the suns UV getting at the top edge of the liner and degrading it.

A quick sketch, pretty poor one really.

 

And as someone mentioned a while back, cant remember who, make sure the corners of those sleepers are well fixed, once that is full of water the weight pushing outwards will be a lot more than you think.

 

A water blade feature is like a water fall
With the sketch it shows. Mud at the back / sides inside the sleepers. Do you have to have that inside? Can't you. Not. Just have the underlay. / liner up inside the sleepers and over the top.
How would you fix corners. Of sleepers they have got 6 inch torx screws. In the sleepers
Thanks