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See a variety of ways to hide your pond liner for a more natural look. How to disguise pond liner Nobody likes VPL! Visible Pond Liner. The common idea of pond construction is to use flat 'crazy paving' slabs on the top edge of the pond. You've seen them, with their slightly overlapping edges, desperately trying to hide any signs of liner. Fail! There are several easy and effective ways to disguise an ugly pond liner. Either using rock and cobbles or plants and even upturned turf. This series of videos will show you how. Creating a series of stepped shelves within the pond allows you to layer stone work up and out of the water. If you start from deep enough in the pond, any uncovered liner will be almost unnoticeable at depth. You can of course cover the entire bottom of the pond with gravel, cobbles and stone. If that's the sort of effect you are trying to achieve. I think of this type of pond as more a stream bed or quarry pond. In a garden situation this style of pond can work well. It is a rare thing to find a natural pond that is rock lined. If you think about it, most ponds are the result of poorly drained land and are therefore not much more than depressions in a saturated soil. As shown in the How to build a wildlife pond page, returning soil into the pond and adding plants at all depths within the substrate will disguise the liner more than adequately. As well as that it looks much more natural than a paved or rock surrounded pond. This style of natural planted pond edge allows you to blend the margins of the pond seamlessly with surrounding borders and lawns.

Learn the easiest ways to keep your pond clear and clean with this simple set of instructions. How to maintain Pond plants. Essentially pond plants are herbaceous perennials and require only one cut in a season. This is usually done in Autumn, once they have all finished flowering. October to November are the best months for this. Some prolific seeders like Marsh Marigold Caltha palustris, can be cut as soon as they have finished flowering. Usually April to May. This reduces the amount of seed they produce. They often send up a second show of flowers after being cut. They are very decorative plants but can be a bit of a thug around a smaller pond, overpowering smaller more delicate plants like Ragged Robin Silene flos cucculi. By the end of the year many of the plants in a pond will have spread an incredible amount. They are prolific growers. Marginals are best cut to ground level around the pond edge. I use a scythe for this. working around the pond edge anti clockwise so that the cut vegetation is drawn away from the water by the scythe. Emergent and deep water plants can also be trimmed (carefully) using a scythe or shears to as close to their base as possible. In large ponds, where amphibians breed, it is best to only clear one third of the vegetation each year. As many amphibians (Adult male frogs and un metamorphosed juveniles) will hibernate in the mud at the bottom of ponds it is best practice to avoid too much disturbance. Make sure as much of the cut vegetation as possible is removed and composted. As mentioned, many pond plants are fast growers and need to be kept in check, otherwise they can smother the other plants and take over the pond. Steer clear of exotic species if you can, as many have proved to be very invasive. Some, once available for sale, are now notifiable invasive plants, recognised as ecologically disastrous in UK waterways. Native pond plants to watch out for are Yellow Flag Iris, Marsh Marigold, Pendulous Sedge, Hornwort, Purple Loosestrife, Water Mint and Rush. In this video I demonstrate how to clear dense mats of overgrown pond plants. In this video you can see how thick some pond plants can become. Their stems and roots forming dense mats on the surface as well as deep into the water. With regular maintenance, as described above, this can be avoided. Regular work is easier and lighter to carry out. Rather than waiting several years and it becoming a hard heavy job. In this video I demonstrate how to clear vegetation using a scythe. Both in and around the pond. Careful use of the scythe allows for quick work around the pond edge. Once in the water I can use the scythe to snip water lilies and oxygenating plants at their base. Once everything is cut, I can rake it out and compost it. Pond plants compost incredibly well. Sludge from the pond bottom is very nutrient rich and makes excellent fertiliser.

Using native UK pond plants in your garden pond. Make your pond more wildlife friendly with this simple guide. How to use native plants in your pond It should be obvious why you need to use native plants in a wildlife friendly pond or garden. But I'll lay it out for you here in case you're under any doubt. Exotic species offer very little in the way of benefit to native insects, other than a nectar source for adult insects. No butterfly or moth species are adapted to using exotic plants as food for their larvae. ie caterpillars. Native plants act in several ways to improve a pond. The roots will help stabilise the shore edge of a pond. They will also act as natural filtration by absorbing nutrients from the water. This reduces build up of excess nutrients which can pollute the water or build up as toxins and poison wildlife. Oxygenate the water as they release oxygen from their roots and stems in tiny streams of bubbles. Provide foraging and shelter for small invertebrates and amphibians. Did you know that frog and toad tadpoles start out as herbivores before becoming insectivores. They will eat the jelly of the spawn first, then move on to algae, dead plant matter and leaves of pond plants. This is one of my own ponds in early summer showing the wide variety of plants growing in and around the water. A wildlife pond, whether it be a naturally occurring pond in the countryside or a lined pond created in a garden, should not have plastic baskets filled with plants in it. I strongly recommend planting young pond plants into a substrate on the pond bottom. You don't need special pond soil bought from a garden centre. In my experience, over many years of creating ponds, not only in gardens but for conservation charities, I have never brought in pond soil or compost. In several ponds I've only used course grit or gravel to act as an anchoring substrate for plug plants. The roots will establish in this and as the pond matures, enough plant matter and waste from pond animals will act as a source of nutrients, which the plants roots can absorb and filter out. Pond plants fall into several categories Deep water. Those which root into the bottom of the pond. Some will send up leaves and flowers to the surface. Oxygenators. Rooting into the bottom of the pond, often growing in large clumps. Surface cover/free floating. Seasonal plants emerging to the surface during warmer weather to spread across the surface. Emergent. Growing in the deeper water around the margins and sending up leaves and stems above the water level. Marginal. Growing with their feet in the damp edges of the pond. Most will tolerate being submerged for long periods. Each type of plant plays an important part in the ecology of the pond. Like the layers of foliage in a forest they offer cover to one another. Provide forage for the animal life. Act as food for some invertebrates as well as the aforementioned early stages in a tadpoles life. Provide egg laying opportunities for various invertebrates. Not just within the pond but above the water as well. And emergent and marginal plants allow the larvae stage of dragon and damselflies to crawl from their aquatic home into the open air. From here they will transform and emerge as adults.

Some pictures of groups of people learning to use Austrian scythes. A gallery of past scythe courses Just a few pictures from training courses I've ran over the years. From National Trust properties & Wildlife Trust reserves across the country to local community groups and garden associations.

View our terms and conditions. Please contact us for mor information Terms and Conditions for Wilderness Tamed Effective Date: May 28, 2024 Welcome to www.wildernesstamed.com (the "Website"). These Terms and Conditions ("Terms") govern your use of our Website and services provided by Wilderness Tamed ("we," "our," or "us"). By accessing or using our Website, you agree to comply with and be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree with these Terms, please do not use our Website. 1. Use of the Website 1.1. Eligibility: You must be at least 18 years old to use our Website. By using our Website, you represent and warrant that you are at least 18 years old and have the legal capacity to enter into these Terms. 1.2. Permitted Use: You may use our Website for lawful purposes only. You agree not to use our Website in any way that could damage, disable, overburden, or impair our Website or interfere with any other party's use and enjoyment of our Website. 1.3. 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Discover the difference between a wildflower/formal style lawn and which would be right for you. Wildflower lawns verses formal lawns How easy are they? As a landscape gardener it often puzzles me when people ask for low maintenance gardens, in which they want huge expanses of grass with few beds and borders. It can take some convincing to make them think that actually the reverse would be much less work for them. Or me come to that. Lets think seriously about how much time is spent on keeping a formal lawn looking good. Then think about how much time is spent on a wild flower lawn. On a formal lawn the grass will require mowing at least once a week during the summer months. What about extra lawn care tasks during the Spring and Autumn? Aerating Scarifying Top dressing and seasonal Weed and feed routines. This all adds up to many hours of your life spent looking after a formal lawn. And what do you get in return? Stripes, an endless battle with moss, broadleaved weeds and pests, an ever increasing burden on your wallet and unnatural levels of fertiliser in the soil. Take a deep breath So lets look at the amount of work required to maintain a wild flower lawn or meadow. How often will it require mowing for example? Usually only once or twice a year. This involves a cut, followed by removal of the cut material. This can be done a day or two after mowing to allow seeds to drop back into the soil. What seasonal management does it need? See above. No pest or weed control. No additional chemical or granular fertilisers. No aerating. No scarifying. No top dressing. This adds up to a lot less of your time and money being spent on managing the same area of your garden. And what do you get in return? A long season of colour. Interest from the variety of flowers. An increase in insect life and other wildlife coming to visit the garden. Less stress. More time to relax. A fatter wallet. Fewer machines cluttering the shed. A more natural healthy soil. Less pollution in the atmosphere. An overwhelming sense of wellbeing and superiority when you sit in your garden listening to the neighbours wrestling with their mowers and strimmers.

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