Recent times have seen about three quarters of our natural wildlife ponds lost. Along with the wetland plants and wildlife they supported.

By building and installing a natural wildlife friendly pond, you'll be creating an oasis for frogs, toads, newts, and dragonflies. You'll enjoy watching the wildlife come and go and helping kids see and understand the workings of nature.

Wildlife garden ponds, streams and water features are built and installed by our pond installation team using puddled clay or rubber liner.

Quotes to install or repair nature garden ponds and water features are free in Bristol, Somerset, Weston super mare, Portishead, Clevedon and further afield when part of a landscaping project. 

When planning and desiging a garden pond, safety considerations are important, especialy if you have children or grand children visiting. I have listed a few things we can do to make the pond safer here. making a pond child safe

Garden Ponds and Water feature tips 

Sticklebacks or minnows are ok in small numbers and maybe add a few goldfish for the kids. If numbers are kept sensible you will never need to feed, leaving the natural productivity and diversity of life in a pond to sustain them. I have kept goldfish in my pond for years and have never fed them. They seem healthy, look happy and breed. 

Ask your pond builder to add some silt from a mature pond, this helps build up the balance of your new pond and if the pond builder adds a bucket of water from a chemical free pond this will give your nature pond a good start by increasing insect life that is essential to the pond.

 

Remember if you are not keeping koi you wont need filters or use chemicals to clean the pond water, despite what the garden centre tells you. If you get the balance right, nature will help you to do this and you will have a happy and healthy wildlife pond. I have listed a few safe plants and some to avoid below.

In a new wildlife pond add water snails, they help break down decaying plants and reduce the build up of algae.

 

The cost of Garden pond design and build.

 A garden pond and waterfall installation requires quality components and a lot of physical labour. If you would like a wildlife pond, stream or water feature installed we can design and install it for you. Please ask for a price.

The cost for installing a small basic garden pond, 

Digging out the shape, lining with butyl or greenseal pond liner and edging with turf or stone from the garden, will be about £1000.  

The cost for building larger ponds,

Adding water falls, water features and streams using natural stone, etc. will cost more, depending on access, cost of materials like natural stone, pond pump, liner and labour and disposing of the excavated soil..

We also repair and fix leaks in garden ponds including clay lined ponds in North Somerset, Bristol, Weston super mare, Portishead, Nailsea, Clevedon, Bath, Yeovil,Highbridge Burnham on Sea, Taunton, Wells and Bridgwater area.  

How to make Garden Ponds using clay.

Water feature and garden ponds design and installation using puddling clay.

Clay is the traditional method of lining ponds/canals and is the best material for lining garden ponds, wildlife ponds and water features. It's spread over the excavation, mixed with water and then repeatedly trampled to remove all the air space and to break down the structure of the clay. Puddling is hard work and must be done thoroughly to make a waterproof seal. In the past, flocks of sheep were used.  

A modern method is to use a dumper truck or JCB, driven back and forth or even a wacker. Or better still enlist the local school, the kids love it and learn about an almost forgotten skill.

If you are lucky and can wait, clay may be available cheaply as a waste product from local building sites and ground work or more likely and I'm afraid more expensive, from clay producers and most suppliers of aggregates. The puddling clay I use is sourced locally when I can. Otherwise I use the supplier of puddling clay used by British Waterways for lining canals. 

The clay layer should be at least  (8") thick and laid in layers. Once properly puddled, the clay lining remains waterproof indefinitely, provided it remains underwater. Exposed clay dries out and cracks, so is not suitable for steep streams and waterfalls. 

A natural meandering stream can be created without using rubber liners, even in very confined woodlands and difficult parts of the garden. Instead we use Bentonite. Bentonite is the same clay used in canal building and repairing leaks in lakes and reservoirs.

Lots more about making a clay lined pond here   Puddling clay for a pond