We didn't want to give it too much of a tidy up because its purpose is to be a haven for wildlife and they aren't all that keen on tidyness. They like the overgrowth for shade and sanctuary. But there is a balance to be struck between wildlife and aesthetics and between overgrown and stagnant.
Anyway, we pulled up the surrounding weeds, reduced the encouching mint and thinned the self-sown leeks. We love allowing a few leeks to flower because they produce beautiful big purple pom pom flowers that the bees and hoverflies go crazy over. Once they have flowered they self-seed all over the place and that's just fine as that will make the following year's pom poms. However, there were clumps of very tightly packed leek plants near the pond at the moment and a little thinning out will help the remaining ones grow into something bigger and more substantial. As an added bonus, the leeks that we thinned out were big enough to eat so made an unexpected, and tasty, harvest.
Its never easy to tackle duck weed and its definitely one of those weeds you have for life. When I was a Science teacher, I used to show a video to my Year 11s on plant growth rates in which they investigated whether duck week or some kind of bambo was the fastest growing plant in the world. Of course, the bambo is much more dramatic with the amount of height it puts on in a day but the duck weed wins on the number of new plants it makes in a day. So, our little pond is a mini cloning lab for duck weed right now. I imparted all this useful information to the nearest Year 11 to hand. Thankfully my daughter is very tolerant of my impromtu Science lessons.
Anyway, the easiest way to deal with duck weed is to use a fishing net to scoop it out and to repeat regularly. Our pond isn't really big enough to fit a fishing net and, besides, our fishing nets are in the shed of our holiday cottage on the north coast of Scotland some 650 miles away. I can't imagine having to explain to a traffic police officer how retrieving fishing nets from the shed of our holiday cottage to deal with the duck weed in our pond constitutes an essential journey. So instead I decide to fashion one out of a scrap piece of material, some wire and a piece of bombo cane. 10 minutes (and no non-essential miles) later we were in business.
I was impressed by how thorough my daughter was at fishing out the pond weed and it kept her amused for quite some time. She dumped the weeds on a piece of plastic next to the pond to give the invertebrates chance to wriggle back into the pond. It was interesting to see that there were wriggly things in it; a good sign of pond health.
Of course, the most exciting moment of the afternoon was when my daughter spotted a frog looking back out at her. It is very heartening to know that our pond is sufficient to provide habitat for frogs as it was the reason we installed it in the first place. I explained to my daughter that frogs like to eat slugs and that was why we had built the pond. She said she thought it was just because her and her sister had enjoyed looking at the pond on the other allotment plots so much when they were little.
Well, I dug out my blog post from May 2009 this morning and confirmed that both were true and it was definely money well spent! So, for the sake of your wildlife and your children, I would recommend installing a pond if you can.
18th May 2009
"Three of the other allotment plots have small ponds. These are a magnet for my girls and each visit to the allotment they inspect each pond in turn. They have been especially interested in the one with the tadpoles. So much so that we decided it was time we ought to put our own pond in - just a little one. With any luck the frogs will help with slug control too.
Having decided to get a pond I went to a local garden centre, tracked down an assistant and said, "I'd like one of those, please." But it turns out that ponds are very popular at the moment, particularly the little one I was after so instead of getting a pond I got a sheet of paper to prove I was on the waiting list. The assistant asked me if I'd like to go on the waiting list for chickens as these are also hugely popular at the moment. Tempting but I declined - one thing at a time.
Two weeks later I received a phone call to inform me that ponds were now back in stock so the next day I went and bought one - 81 litre capacity for £14.99. Late Saturday afternoon my husband put on his boots and grabbed his spade and off we went to the allotment. An hour later we had a pond, complete with water and surrounded by a pile of attractive pebbles and stones collected from years of seaside holidays.
The next day we visited the garden centre again and this time we bought 3 marginal plants, a mini water lily, some oxygenating elodea and a bag of gravel. The rest of the day the weather flitted rapidly between sunshine and showers (sometimes at the same time!) and blew a gale. Early evening we dashed out and put the plants in, distributed the gravel around the outside and took a cupful of pond water out of one of the other ponds to introduce some wildlife to our pond. A fellow plot holder has promised us some tadpoles out of his garden pond so that should be fun!
So it was £14.99 for the pond, £3.99 for the gravel and £20 for the plants. Fairly expensive for imperfect slug control but a great source of entertainment and education for the girls and definitely worth it!"
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