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Journal Jungle pond project...

sanj

sanj

Member
Joined
10 Apr 2008
Messages
1,531
Location
Coventry, UK
Hi all,

I have not really been on here for a long while and this year I have been focussed on the garden while the Rainbowfish have taken a backseat. I have lived in my current new build house for 6 years but have never really got around to doing much with the back garden. Getting it landscaped would have cost thousands possibly £10k +. I knew I wanted water in there and a sub tropical feel. In April I started thinking about easy water gardening possibilities on the tub theme and started creating places for them. One day my partner suggested how amazing a pond and stream would be....I was like yeah, but the work involved!

I woke up one morning in late April and just thought "I'm going to do it "

April 27th:
IMG_20170426_173621.jpg
 
30th April:IMG_20170430_175357.jpg I had an approximate idea of the shape and flow, but I had not drawn anything out. Last time I did anything pondy was when I was 10. I have always appreciated water in the garden, but never got around to doing anything about it. Looking at various different methods, at one point I wanted to do a gravel bed filter, but also keep things simple. That didn't happen in the end. Wide shelves for planting, this is no koi pond it's going to be covered in vegetation particularly waterlily cultivars, kind of getting interested in hardy tropical cultivars . Oh yeah the shape above very simple, but hopefully in the end will not look too dull.
 
4th May Digging deeper:
IMG_20170504_205603.jpg
Took the photo about 9 in the evening, sorry.
Digging deeper on new build land is no fun. It's full of crap rubble and such. Also this land slopes towards the house, so one side of the pond is not the same as the other. With that in mind it's barely 60cm at the deepest point, but to hell with 3ft rules and the like. Who made them up anyway? Fishies, you are going to learn to like it...but anyway I read 45cm is the absolute minimum for a pond with fish. Still whose rule? God's, Scientific fact? Bleh anyway. Snakey stream starting to take shape, but again toned it down a bit.
 
9th May, Getting laid:
IMG_20170509_211030.jpg

I used Firestone? Liner for the main pond and supposedly more flexible but not quite as thick Greenseal for the stream and upper pool. Thick underlay went on first then the main pond liner followed by the stream liner. There is good overlap between the two I think a few feet.
My guess on pond volume is 3,500 to 4,000 litres. The main pond is about 3.5m x 3.5m bit much of it is shallow.
 
13th May, filling and trial run:
IMG_20170513_165211.jpg
IMG_20170513_173304.jpg

I am using a 12000l flow through filter and a 6000l rated PondXpert pump. Over rating seems to be the thing to d😵ne of the things about ponds I notice is that hiding the liner can be a bigger. I thought about various options and in the end settled on different grades of Scottish pebbles and boulders.
 
As of this weekend 10-11th June:
IMG_20170609_185925.jpg IMG_20170609_190006.jpg IMG_20170609_190035.jpg IMG_20170609_190048.jpg

It's not all tidied up, I'm still planting and there is bags and tools all over the place. Stone (5 tonnes of it) may look a bit overwhelming at the moment, but I expect this to soften as the softscape grows in.

Still awaiting a couple of purple and purple blue Nymphae cultivars from Germany.

Nymphae list (mostly complete):

N. Colorado
N. Wanvisa
N. Tankhwan
N. Sunfire
N. Siam 1
N. Siam 2
N. Queen Sirikit.
N. Purple fantasy

Various marginals, but the most tropical esque seem to be cyperus altifolious(?) and Thalia dealbata

Fish:

Apart from 8 fantails, looking at Rainbow Shiners and Rainbow Dace. Also looking at Medaka for the tubs. The big ones are over 200 litres filled just below the rim.
 
Absolutely :thumbup: wonderfull.. Those big water filled bowls added is realy what made it.. You could start a career in garden pond designing.. :clap:
Cyperus alternifolius, if you can take the basket inside or away from frost and it'll survive the winter and can be placed back early spring. If the roots freeze it'll die..
 
I have no idea, i take mine inside for the winter and cut out the flower stacks, than some foilage will survive and it comes back rather quick from a matured rootsystem.. If kept outside all foilage will die anyway, how fast it will come back from that i do not know. I also collect it's seeds, to play with and try different things.. I noticed it is not a super fast grower in our climate, i placed some few months old seedlings which look like ordinairy lawn grass in deeper water and it looks like it doesn't realy like it, it would need a long time or load of co2 to grow to emersed form. I guess the bigger cyprus sold in the garden centres is at least a few years old plant..

But you could give it a try and raise it back to the surface again in the spring.. It might just come back, tho i guess it will stay rather small. Our summers are way to short to make it come back as a large bushy plant from scratch..
 
Lovely......the neighbours will be jealous as hell.....:thumbup:
Bet the Mrs was pleased with the result.
One critique....move the bogwood....looks out of place😉
Nice work.....:clap:
 
hogan53 said:
move the bogwood....looks out of place
Click to expand...

Yes and no, if not in a shaded spot move it to one.. Find mosses and cover it.. Also cover stones which are shaded with mosses.. This will give the aged look it will finaly get on it's own.. But on it's own and because it is spot on clean and new, it might take years... Look up the Moss/yogurt trick.. 😉 And just squeeze patches of nice looking moss you find in nature between the rocks.

If you search around in the woods, you might find some dead wood covered with mosses and maybe a small fern growing in the moss.. Collecting such patches and place it on the wood looks awsome..

just an idea, at least you are talking Jungle style.. So i assume keeping it tidy and clean as a baby bottoms as it is right now is not the goal.. 🙂
 
sanj said:
As of this weekend 10-11th June:
View attachment 105900 View attachment 105901 View attachment 105902 View attachment 105903

It's not all tidied up, I'm still planting and there is bags and tools all over the place. Stone (5 tonnes of it) may look a bit overwhelming at the moment, but I expect this to soften as the softscape grows in.

Still awaiting a couple of purple and purple blue Nymphae cultivars from Germany.

Nymphae list (mostly complete):

N. Colorado
N. Wanvisa
N. Tankhwan
N. Sunfire
N. Siam 1
N. Siam 2
N. Queen Sirikit.
N. Purple fantasy

Various marginals, but the most tropical esque seem to be cyperus altifolious(?) and Thalia dealbata

Fish:

Apart from 8 fantails, looking at Rainbow Shiners and Rainbow Dace. Also looking at Medaka for the tubs. The big ones are over 200 litres filled just below the rim.
Click to expand...
I think you have done grand job. Agree with you a tad over bearing on the stone side. For now. But once all the plants are in place and grow. I believe it will look awesome. Good now. But not yet awesome. Great job.

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk
 
Stunning, great job, keep us updated 🙂
 
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