No VPL

Do you have a pond? If not why not?

I can spend hours sitting on the little bridge across my pond watching the newts surface and court and the frogs basking on the sides. It isn't a big pond as you can see from the pictures and the bridge isnt exactly Monet but it divides the garden nicely so that the only way from one end to the other is to cross the bridge.

This is the hole

I wanted to have a troll installed but the 'Union of fantasy creatures' were against the idea as it was classed as stereotyping. So much for my efforts to employ out of work silica based life forms.













Still the amphibians provide more than enough entertainment. We introduced frog spawn from a friends garden pond the first year we moved in. Invertebrates had all ready established themselves very quikly. Pond scaters, water boatmen, those little shrimpy things, and damesell flys. I know the flying bugs can smell or spot a pond from a long way up and drop in to investigate, but the none flying stuff, how the hell do they get here? I was filling a pond in a customers garden from a hose and from over my shoulder something flew straight into the 3 inches of water that was in the bottom of the liner. It was a small diving beetle. Incredible!

Line the hole with either soft sand or newspaper. You can buy special liner underlay but I bet it costs.

After the first year we found a few Palmate and Smooth newts had arrived. In the fourth year a single female Great Crested newt was seen lurking in the bottom. Next year a pair. Following year two pair and in the Autumn several eft swimming boldly in the clear patches. Frogs start to become active most years by late January but no mating or spawn appears until March. Then the tadpoles hatch and are promptly eaten by the ever increasing population of newts.

Lay out the liner and begin to fill. Ideally you'd allow the rain to fill it naturally or divert rain water from your drain pipes.
Yeah ideally, but lets be realistic.
The edge of the hole was stepped so that rock and upturned turf could be set into the water at varying levels. This allows you to disguise the liner and if the water level varies, which it will, the liner remains hidden.




Forget fish, they dont mix with amphibians. Mine is pure wildlife so no ornamental, inbred carp or freaky looking fish for this boy, oh no!

Testing the bridge.

Four years ago the pond was infested with dragon fly larvae which were killing everything that moved including some adult newts. So I fished about 40 of the little buggers out and took then to a near by nature reserve with huge ponds which would cope better with them.





All rock and plant work done and look...

No VPL.
Visible pond liner.









Here I am sitting on the bridge in May 2002 reading a venomous snake protocol.
There aren't many who could say that I'll bet.

I will leave you now as I must go for a newt training day. I think we get them to leap from the pond and take dead fish from our mouths and jump through hoops, stuff like that.
I'll keep you informed.

Lawn maintenance

Grass cutting is an utter bore, which is why the first thing I did with my new garden was spray off the turf with Napalm. The average UK citizen who owns a lawn has an unhealthy obssession with striped and scalped sward.
Lets look at how grass grows. Unlike most other plants and trees who grow from the tip, grass grows from the base. The culm or rooty base of grass is usually pale cream or yellow and without Chlorophyll. Thats the stuff that makes the green bits of plants green. If you cut a blade of grass really short you will reveal the yellow base. Hence during the summer here in Blighty most lawns outside peoples homes are shaved yellow squares. Delightful! Not!
Raise the height of cut on your mowers please. Amenity turf should be maintained at about 2" not 1/2 an inch. Be honest with yourself you probably have a broad leaved grass mix, which, from observations I've made over the last 42 years of life, is 80% weed filled so will never look like the greens at a golf course or bowling green. Have you watched the grounds person at your local sports facility. I live opposite the local village cricket club, and those guys are out there on their sit on mowers and push along Ransome cylinder cutters three times a week. Bugger that, what kind of life is that? To keep a bog standard lawn looking half decent you need to cut it at least once a week during the months from March to October. Remember that grass never stops growing it only slows down during the winter. So a mild winter will have you dragging the mower out of the shed, if you want to avoid that awfull heavey slog around the sod in late spring because you left it too long between cuts. I take great delight in sitting in my garden listening to the surrounding neighbours battling with strimmers and heaving rotary mowers back and forth through dozens of square meters of lank tuffted grass. Then a month later they'll all be out doing the same again. The sounds of an English summer, Black birds setting out their territories, grass cutters humming and mower pushers cursing as they mow over the cable/ a frog/ a dog turd. Delete as appropriate or inappropriate.
What I'm trying to say is if you insist on keeping that square of green boring and time consuming sod out side the house then stop deluding yourself that it is ever going to look like a golf course. Stop cutting it so short and forget stripes. Dont just take my word for it ask any garden expert and they'll say raise the height of cut on your mower.