Water mint..

Water mint (mentha aquatica) is now playing a blinder around the pond.

Like thyme and marjoram, it is a herb whose flowers are attractive to pollinators. 

A metre tall in places, its flowers are enjoyed by high-summer insects like speckled wood butterflies. The larval food plant of two moth species, including knot grass.

purple..

A purple loosestrife city has risen around the pond.

A gift as plugs from my aunt and uncle.

We'd first seen purple loosestrife in all its glory on the Scottish Isle of Colonsay. Ditches and pond edges deep purple.

The tall flower spikes await insects in this empty-of-insects summer. 

The skeletal stems will remain until spring.

They'll be perfect launch sites for the emerging damselfly and dragonfly nymphs who will crawl up into the sunshine and emerge resplendent and glistening as adults.

Leaving their empty exuviae behind.

the 'bad boy' arrives ....

7:15am.

'Rob. It's Bill. We'll be coming up to your place with the digger first thing'.

You would struggle to find words more exciting to the wildlife gardener: words to transform a man who qualifies for a bus pass into a small boy on Christmas morning.

Local farmer Bill Hammond supervising work ...

We have gardened with biodiversity at the forefront of our thoughts since we began the Cordwood project. We love nature!!

We've got simple flowers to attract bees. Lots of bird boxes. Lots of bird food. Piles of rotting wood. Native plants. Tolerance!

But the biggest boost we can give wildlife starts today: our pond.

It'll be a big 'un: 18m in diameter and a depth of 1.7m. Gently sloping to the centre. Fed with rainwater from the roofs of our two bungalows. With a wonderful circumference of beautiful water plants and a 'beach' of stones.

.. showing the perimeter path and the gentle shelving to the centre

Our site was 'dry' when we arrived. At the top of a sandy, windy hill, there was no source of water for wildlife at all. And water is the key if you want to attract wildlife - for drinking, feeding, bathing and breeding. 

Today Mark arrived with the 22 tonne  'bad boy' - a huge JCB digger with a bucket that scoops two tonnes of spoil out at a single sweep. A beast of a machine!

He worked all day and left us with a pond that may well rival Rutland Water one day!

The HG joined by celebrity birder Ray Fox

Marks work was the first step. Further steps will be to purchase and lay a liner and to cover the liner with 300mm of the 'spoil' we removed today. This will need compacting into place before the rain fills the pond naturally. Inevitably, this stage will trigger the longest drought ever recorded - put your pension on it. A cert.

We're impatient folks and so the best practice of simply leaving the pond vegetation to regenerate naturally will be difficult to follow. I'm know that the head gardener (HG) has had her books out, making lists. But the space is so big, nature will inevitably take its course - which should be the way in a wildlife pond.

Mark surveys the days' work

But, looking to the future, Bill and Marks endeavours today will transform our garden - for us and the wildlife that we hope will use it for many years to come.

Thank you so much.

 

february filldyke

The old country description of this month is 'February filldyke'. A month of rain. The difference this year is that we have had the wettest start to the year on record. Hmmmm. The hottest 13 years on record have occurred in the last 14 years. There's something happenin' out there and yet we have a government who appoint an Environment minister who is a climate change sceptic. What is there to be sceptical about? The climate is changing. Do something about it!!

My heart goes out to those poor people affected by the flooding and the short-term thinking of successive governments.

Here's Carlyle's five point plan:

1. Reduce carbon emissions. Fund home insulation. Say no to fracking!.
2. Change subsidy payments to farmers to encourage landowners to plant more native trees on our hill and mountainsides. Trees enable water to be more readily absorbed into the ground and slow the rate of run off.
3. Manage our watercourses so that increased rainfall can be accommodated. Meanders and ox-bow lakes are good. Designate areas as flood plains and fund landowners to manage their land in this way. Reduce canalisation. Increase wetlands. Reintroduce beavers!!
4. Consider carefully how sensible it is to allow building in flood plains. In Holland they have moved vulnerable communities away from the highest risk areas.
5. Continue the 'managed retreat' policy of allowing tidal areas to flood.

Here,  at wet Cordwood our crude pond is filling well in the deluge. The water is collected from our roofs and is piped to our pond.

We have taken up Adam's suggestion and added oxygenating pond weed and await our first local frogs and toads.

NB It is best not to transfer frogspawn or frogs and toads to new ponds due to the risk of transmitting disease.

starting over

Pond makeover time!

There's never a great time to strip a pond out and start again.

But August is probably as good as it gets.

Aquatic plants are usually very vigorous. They need to know who's boss or they will take over the pond, leaving insufficient room for invertebrates, fish and amphibians. This pond had been left to its own devices for too long. Bog bean had taken over and the liner was punctured. Time to start again!!!!!

Here we have removed all the pond plants, scoped out the gunk and reshaped the levels so that plants can be conveniently placed onto shelves in containers.

The area at the front is for submerged gravel.







The finished pond was completed cheaply and using reused materials.

• The old liner was reused as under liner preventing sharp stones puncturing.
• A piece of surplus liner was used as the new liner.
• The old pebbles were dredged out and washed and reused as the shingle 'beach'. The paving stones were simply lifted from the old pond and then used again.
• The sand was surplus from another job - as was the cement.

Although quite naked at the moment, when the pond plants have been reintroduced it will look as good as new. Hopefully it will be a great place for birds to drink and to bathe and home for frogs, newts and dragonflies.