Redoing the Pond (Part 1)

So today I headed down to the allotment with the aim of redoing the pond by the shed. The pond base is a massive tree pot which our beautiful olive tree came in. However, over the past three years, the liner has degraded to such a point that it hardly retains water. Happily, I had the leftover pond liner from the Community Garden pond renovation. It was an odd shape but I was confident that there was a big enough piece for my little pond.

Oh if only it was that simple! First, I removed all the water into a selection of buckets and containers. I made sure to put the reeds and water hawthorn into a bucket until I refilled the pond. Carefully, I took handfuls of the gravel out and put it into a nearby flower pot. The remaining water and sludge intended to keep wrapped in the old liner until the new liner was in.

As I removed the old liner I realised the underlay was absolutely shredded. Luckily, I had some spare better quality pond underlay and put it in.

The liner proved difficult. Not only is it extremely heavy, it had a tendency to drop into the water containers at the most inconvenient moments. It wasn’t quite wide enough so I used a second section to cover the gap. Wondering if this might work, I started to fill up the pond.

Initially, it seemed to be working well. However, once the pond was three quarters full, it didn’t seem to get any fuller. As I pottered back and forth to the tap, filling the pond, I realised I could hear a different water noise. I search around and discovered the water leaking out of the bottom of the pond. Clearly, this wasn’t going to work. Sighing, I resigned myself to having to buy some more pond liner this evening.

So hopefully tomorrow will be a more productive day! I’ve got my eye on the weeds which I am determined to tackle and getting in some more plants.