When I bought my house
in February of 2001, I inherited a "garden" with two small patches
of grass and a large swathe of concrete and psudeo crazypaving, which
the previous owner loved, spending every summer having barbecue parties.
He certainly didn't like wildlife - at least not the natural kind.
To give you an idea of the location, here are a couple
of Google Earth pictures. As you can see, my 'umble abode is surrounded
by houses, schools and a thumping great international airport, Manchester
(UK).
The next picture makes it a little clearer.
Fortunately, despite the crudity of the garden, it was
a reasonable size and had possibilities.
My first action was to turn one of the small strips of
grass to a vegetable patch. That proved a disaster as glass and other
debris was unearthed. On investigation, it turned out that a previous
occupant of the house had been a scrap merchant!
So we decided to plant shrubs and bushes instead. Sandra,
my partner who is a biologist, suggested that we also needed flowers to
attract bees, not to mention brightening up the place.
The problem still remained with the concreted/crazypaved
barbecue area and a sterile "water feature fountain" surrounded
by limestone chippings. It was the reaction of the birds visiting the
bird feeders and the discovery of a frog enjoying the shower from the
fountain that decided us to bite the bullet and dig a pond. We got loads
of helpful information from that excellent website, Beautiful
Britain. Their illustrations and advice enabled us to get to this
stage fairly quickly, after a skipload of builders' rubble had been shifted!!
Now to fill it! This was June 1st 2008
At last, a great chunk of unsightly concrete and "water
feature" are now even more unsightly - but at least its a start.
I don't believe the "concrete garden" will ever be pretty, but
fortunately birds, bees, frogs and other wildlife seem less concerned
about the niceties of life. They just want to eat and mate.
The expert pond makers among you are probably groaning
with despair. Yes, you are right, we put the liner in upside down. All
the seams are showing, not to mention wrinkles everywhere - but it actually
turned out to be a happy accident. When the pond was full, the seams and
wrinkles flattened somewhat and created lots of hidey holes for pond bugs.
We didn't realise it at the time, but you'll see later.
The pond's first birthday 1st June 2009
The pond has matured beyond our wildest dreams. It is teeming
with life. Tadpoles have now started to emerge as young frogs, back-swimmers
are everywhere, water snails of gigantic proportions, daphnia, water boat-men,
caddis fly larvae and many more creatures. The folds that we mentiond
earlier have proven to be a blessing for smaller creatures to hide and
even larger tadpoles dive into them when they feel threatened.
The patch of grass where Sandra is standing, is a specially
sown meadow grass mix. We are hoping that by next year it will have plenty
of bee friendly flowers as well as grass for hanging over the pond edge
for froglets to hide.
We will be adding pages over the next few months with lots
of interesting information on gardening to attract wild life, so please
do come back - often. Any advice you may have about what to do to the
concrete corner in the background will be gratefully received.
By the way, the woodpile in the far corner is deliberate
for possible bees nests and also a home for insects.
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