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garden pond

Gardening

Our froggy friends

froggy friends - Frog sticking head out of pond

Froggy Friends

As a child, I spent many happy hours at the pond catching newts or in the brook with my net, fishing for sticklebacks.
My favourite time of the year was spring because that’s when our froggy friends would appear. I’d get excited when I saw the frog spawn and would eagerly await the emergence of the tiny tadpoles.

Because of these happy memories, I’ve always longed for a wildlife pond of my own and earlier this year, the super wonderful husband made me a pond with a waterfall and stream.

froggy friends - Stone waterfall

 

Pond, waterfall and rockery

Today, while getting one of the borders ready for planting, we saw four frogs poking their heads out of the water.
As I stood watching them, I realised that I’ve now got exactly what I’ve wanted for so long and a feeling of contentment washed over me. I absolutely love my pond and can’t thank the S.W.H. enough for making it so perfect for me :o)

Frog in the water, next to the horsetail

 

Frog in water next to lily pad

 

Close up of frog in water next to horsetail plant

 

Frog poking from under lilypad

 

Frog in watercress at the edge of pond

 

Gardening

How does your garden grow?

Wildlife Pond

It’s been a while since I wrote about the garden because frankly, it’s a mess and needs a huge amount of work doing on it.
I kept putting it off but over the last few weeks we’ve made a start and things are finally getting the way we want them.

The biggest project by far is the wildlife pond, waterfall and stream that the super wonderful husband is in the process of creating.

Wildlife Pond in our garden

We’re waiting for some pond plants to be delivered that we ordered from eBay and Ant’s nearly got everything sorted on the waterfall (we’re having a few setbacks due to leaks but he’s getting there!) and stream so hopefully we’ll be getting some wildlife in there soon!

The earlier plans I had for the garden have been totally changed! Where the pond was going to go at the top of the garden, we’re now designating that area for the 10ft round paddling pool we’re going to buy this year. I’m sick of buying blow up ones that get popped in the first week so we’re going to spend a bit more money and get a stronger one.

The pond is now next to the patio so that I can sit by the side of it and watch the wildlife. I’ve already been out there just listening to the water when the waterfall has been on and I absolutely love it. It’s going to look wonderful when it’s all planted up.

As to the rest of the garden, Ant wants to build a hobbit house for the kids, we’re still planning on covering the patio with a wooden veranda and I’m hoping to be able to afford some comfortable patio furniture at some point this year 🙂

I’ve got a border to dig over, weed and scatter some seeds as well as lots of pots to empty and plant up with new flowers.

It’s a busy time but I love it!

We’ve got far too many of these…..

Snails on Ella's hand

that, as you can see, Ella loves, and the forget me nots have been looking lovely.

Forget me not flowers

After seeing how they’ve taken over my mother in law’s garden, I’m happy I put mine in pots! She’s never had as many as she’s had this year. It does look gorgeous, the sea of blue, but we’ve had to pull lots of them up before they start to seed again.

Talking of seeds, we’ve got too many of these as well

Dandelion seed head

which look really lovely but cause so much hard work!

Finally, the apple tree has had hardly any blossom this year and I fear we won’t be getting half as a good crop out of it as we did last year

Apple tree

It’s nice to be posting about the garden again and I hope to be joining in with HDYGG more often now the house is just about done 🙂

 

Gardening

Pond update

Pond Update – Ant spent last weekend and most of this week digging and lining our new pond. I can’t believe how much he got done, I expected it to take a lot longer!

He’s suffering now though, he’s aching everywhere! I reckon he’s going to be having lots of long soaks in a nice hot bath!

Ant digging the pond

 

preparing the pond

 

rocks for the pond

 

Ant digging out the pond

 

Pond being dug out

 

Pond before liner goes in

 

Pond liner being filled with water
Pond liner being filled with water

 

Pond lining and stream bed
This part is going to be my little stream :o)

We ordered a 6×6 metre pond liner from PondKeeper  and got free underlay with it 🙂 With the postage included it cost less than £60

Ant also ordered a new pump which should hopefully be delivered today. I’m so excited!

 

Gardening

Finally made a start on the pond :oD

I’ve been putting it off for weeks now and today I finally decided to get out there and move some of the flowers from the border where the pond is going to be.
You can see it’s overgrown with weeds and grass but the primroses are lovely and I didn’t want to just chuck them away.

Spring flower border before being dug up for pond
Oh dear, I’ve only just realised I didn’t tidy all the stuff on the patio before taking the photo! Please ignore the broken chair, tipped over plastic chairs and general mess!

I marked out the border edge with the spade then removed all the grass. I dug it over, removing all the weeds that I could so it became a clearly defined border again.

Garden before flower border
Before – you’d never know a border had even been here the way the grass had overtaken it!

Then I dug up the primroses, forget me nots and some lily bulbs from the other border….

Garden before pond

and replanted them in the newly dug border 🙂

flower border

I’m not sure what to plant here for interest and colour when after the primrose flowers have gone. I think I need to go and consult Sir Google!

Ella’s been outside taking photos and she was delighted to see the return of the bleeding heart flowers, as was I and I love the forget-me-nots 🙂

Bleeding hearts

 

Forget me nots

 

Gardening

Exciting garden plans afoot :D

It’s safe to say the new garden has been neglected these last few months because we’ve had a lot to do in the house. So it´s time to put on my working boots and take out the leaf blower, lawnmower, and all my gardening tools.

The borders aren’t doing too bad but they’re definitely in need of weeding and talking of weeds, the vegetable garden is absolutely full of them.

No Vegetable Garden!

I had planned to keep the vegetable garden and grow our own veg for Christmas dinner but I know deep down that I’ll get fed up and want to grow pretty flowers instead! I also want a water feature and after talking it over with Ant, we’ve decided that the vegetable patch will become my part of the garden where I can potter about in the greenhouse, plant up hanging baskets and pots in my potting shed and have a place to just sit and enjoy the water.

Exciting Garden Plans

So here are our plans for what is going to be a very big garden project 🙂

exciting garden plans

Wildlife Pond & Waterfall

I’ve been spending a huge amount of time on Pinterest looking for the perfect waterfall, stream and pond. I want something like this….

Source
Source
Source

I’ve put a bridge on the plan but after seeing the stepping stone on the above photos I think I’d prefer that.
I want it to end in a small wildlife pond where hopefully, I’ll get some frogs moving in and making it home 🙂

Shed Plans

I’m going to be prettying up our sheds and I’m using these photos for inspiration…

Found on Pinterest but unsure of original source. Happy to add copyright information.
Again, found on Pinterest and unsure of original source. Happy to add copyright information.

Fun Pathways

I want some fun paths so again I turned to Pinterest and here’s the design I’ve picked 🙂

Again, found on Pinterest and unsure of original source. Happy to add copyright information.

I’m sure we’ve already got enough wood to make this path and a small patio, thanks to Ant never throwing stuff away! I’m going to be using Cuprinol pastel garden shades to paint the wood pieces and I’m thinking of filling in between the wood with small stones.

I’m really excited to get started but I’m also wondering where to start because it really is quite a mess at the moment!

Getting Rid Of Rubbish

I’m going to be spending the weekend clearing and sorting rubbish then digging up the bricks from the other greenhouse the previous owner used to have.
Ant’s going to sort out what preparation needs doing to move the sheds and greenhouse then I’ll work on any jobs I can do while he’s at work.

The kids are happy that I’m leaving all of the lawn alone because the lawn we had at the old house was tiny and they said I took up too much space in the garden with my flowers!
They love having a big lawn to play on.

So there we have it, big plans for our wonderful new big garden and I can’t wait to get started 🙂

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