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How to Build a Wildlife Pond

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In spring 2022 I finally decided to build a wildlife pond. Two years on I hoped to reflect on the pond I created and that gave me the idea of writing a blog post about how I created my wildlife pond.

I’ll break this down best I can and also share some useful tips on reducing the cost of building a pond. Mine cost very little, less than £50.

What You Will Need

First things first, a shopping list of sorts.

  1. A garden with space for a pond.
  2. Gardening tools.
  3. A few bags of fine sand
  4. A pond liner
  5. Rocks, stones, pebbles and broken plant pots
  6. Pond plants

These items can all be purchased from places like B&Q, Wickes or local garden centres, but there is a better option; Facebook Marketplace!

I got almost everything I needed from Marketplace, including the plants. All I had to buy were a few pieces of plumb slate, the sand and a few specific plants I wanted. The pond liner was from Marketplace too but not for free, it was still very cheap!

Planning

Firstly, I would suggest making a plan. I took some photos of the spot I wanted to make my pond and drew over it with the notes app on my phone. I roughly laid out the elements and depths along with position and shape.

Once I was happy with the dimensions and placement, I drafted a more details sketch that gave me something to work from. Here’s my final design:

The Dig

This is perhaps the most difficult part of the whole process, this and moving the rocks! Start by outlining the pond with a spade, then take the top layer of grass up. If you’re careful you can remove in strips to use elsewhere; I didn’t, and just threw it all into a pile on some tarp on the front drive.

Tip: take a photo of all the soil once dug out and share it on Marketplace for free. Someone will likely want the soil to fill in an old pond or similar!

Once the first layer is taken off, mark out the varying depths you want to put in. I planned for:

The deep section allowed for toads to potentially lay eggs and gave the pond some resilience to drastic temperature changes with the shallower sections catering for other wildlife.

Note: The shallow section is a must to allow animals to exit the pond if they fall in!

Once you have marked out these sections, start digging. This is a tough part but you have to just crack on till it’s done.

My design had a staircase like shape where by there was a “ramp” between each depth allowing animals to crawl out if needed.

The final thing to note is that you should leave an edge around the pond to add rocks and plants, 300 mm should be sufficient; I didn’t leave enough and it caused me trouble!

Lining Your Pond

Once the hole is sufficiently dug, you can line the pond. Firstly, cover the whole thing with a layer of fine sand. Make sure there isn’t anything sharp in the sand by lightly tapping it. Make this layer about 20 mm deep if you can! This layer of sand will soften the base for the rubber liner you add which will help prevent holes developing.

Once laid, you can put the liner in. Go for a Butyl liner as it’s will be hard wearing and flexible and won’t degrade as easily as rubber. Lay the liner over the pond and start to mould it to the shape of the pond. The water will do this when you add it but doing so now best you can will prevent the liner being pulled too far in. You need to leave a decent lip around the edge, at least 300 mm.

Once the liner is sufficiently laid, you can add some feature to the pond base. I used a few broken pots (smoothed sharp edges) and other bits and bobs to create hiding spaces. Your pond will do the hard work on its own once the wildlife moves in.

The final task is to trim the liner. I’d fill the pond with water first before you do this as the water will pull the liner in slightly as it conforms to the shape of your dig. Trim it with a decent lip so you have room to move if needed.

Planting Your Pond

Once the pond is full of water you can start planting it up. This includes adding all the additional substrate such as gravel and other bits and bobs.

Start by adding any gravel you want to line the bottom of your pond. Gravel is great for wildlife as it allows microbes to start growing communities and gives bugs places to hide. Any silt in the water from filling/washing rocks will settle and add to the substrate. I only added gravel to the shallow beach area.

Next, start adding rocks to the sides of the pond to build it up. Leave room for planting pockets. You can fold the liner up in these areas to prevent water running through the soil and into the pond. If you plan to use fertiliser it’s especially important there is little run-off as it will cause eutrophication.

Add compost to the planting pockets and pop your plants in. I’ll not list plants here as they are your choice and there are millions of articles online about the best plants for where you live. Generally speaking try to stick to native plants.

This is how my pond looked after planting up.

I finished this up by adding more rocks and some large chunks of plumb slate to the edge.

This is what the pond looked like a week or so later when I’d added all the edging and neatened things up.

Building your wildlife pond is all about providing for the wildlife whilst making a pond that you enjoy to work on and be around.

I hope this gave some insight into the how I created my wildlife pond and gave some inspiration on how you could build your own!

Niall

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Date Created: 2024-04-02 22:47