July 25, 2025 • 59 mins
Dive deep into the fascinating world of wildlife ponds with expert Ashley Dowling, who reveals that creating a thriving aquatic ecosystem involves far more than simply digging a hole and filling it with water. This episode uncovers the secrets to designing pond environments that genuinely support biodiversity through thoughtful construction and planting.
Ashley shares her expertise on creating multi-layered pond structures that provide diverse habitats for different creatures. From deep areas that maintain stable temperatures to carefully crafted marginal zones that allow safe access for frogs and other wildlife, every aspect of the design plays a crucial ecological role. The conversation explores how different materials—stones, logs, and various substrates—create microhabitats that support a wealth of specialized insects and amphibians.
The plant selection discussion is equally illuminating, highlighting native species like marsh marigold, water dock, and yellow flag iris that form the backbone of a healthy pond ecosystem. Ashley explains how these plants should be arranged to mimic natural patterns rather than conventional block planting, enabling them to form symbiotic relationships that enhance biodiversity.
Beyond the pond itself, this episode examines how complementary habitats like beetle banks, stone piles, and simple DIY features can transform your entire garden into a wildlife haven. Ashley also demystifies pond maintenance, advocating for working with natural processes rather than fighting them with chemicals, and touches on sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) that can be incorporated into home gardens.
Whether you have space for a barrel pond or are planning something more ambitious, this conversation will inspire you to think like a wildlife gardener and create connected ecosystems that welcome creatures of all kinds. Subscribe now to hear more garden wisdom that balances beauty with biodiversity.
You Can Contact Ashley through instagram see here :
https://www.instagram.com/pond_girl_ashley?igsh=MTh6b2M1OXI0ejJ6NQ==
Or by email:
Ashleyjd_99@yahoo.com
If there is any topic you would like covered in future episodes, please let me know.
Email: info@mastermygarden.com
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Until next week
Happy gardening
John
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
how's it going, everybody, and welcome to
episode 286 of master, my gardenpodcast.
Now, this week's episode, we'regoing deeper into a topic that
we have covered in the past, andit's the creation and
maintenance of a wildlife pond.
So we have covered this before.
As I mentioned a few weeks agowith Brian and Gilly from
Wildacres.
We spoke about it then.
We've spoke about it previouslyin the creation of a garden
(00:36):
pond, but this week I haveAshley Dowling, who's an expert
in ponds.
She has a business all aroundthe creation of wildlife ponds
and ponds in general andanything really to do with water
in your garden.
She has a business all aroundthe creation of wildlife ponds
and ponds in general andanything really to do with water
in your garden.
She's also an expert atcreating habitats for the likes
of hedgehogs and so on in yourgarden and, yeah, she maintains
(00:56):
and creates from scratch.
So we're going to look at thecreation of a wildlife pond, but
also how you don't just dig ahole in the ground, fill it with
water and call that a wildlifepond.
That there is the sort ofconnection to your garden that
you need to do in order toensure that it does what it's
supposed to do there.
So we're going to go deep diveon this today.
So, ashley, you're very, verywelcome to Master my Garden
(01:16):
podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Thank you for having me delighted to be here to chat
about my favorite topic of alltime.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, we've been speaking off air, so it's
definitely your favorite topic.
So, um, I suppose, as I say,we've covered this a little bit
in the past and but not goneinto it in a deep way, and I
think, as we were chatting offair, it's it's clear that
wildlife ponds we'll talk abouttheir benefits in a minute and
they're hugely beneficial withinthe garden and ponds in general
um, but, as you said, it'sabout connecting them to, I
(01:46):
suppose connecting them to thegarden as, as opposed to just
dropping them there and hopingthat something finds it.
So, I suppose, firstly, how didyou get into ponds or where has
this?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
uh well, that's a yeah, that's a long story.
So I actually studiedagricultural science because I
wanted to be a farmer I still dobut I was disillusioned by what
, as advisors, you would have totell farmers to do with the
whole chemical thing.
So I had dug my first pond, Ithink when I was 13, and
(02:22):
continued to do so, and then Ithought I'd go into horticulture
and I kind of did branch intohorticulture and landscaping and
then I just loved ponds so muchthat I started doing
maintenance for garden ponds forthe lovely little old ladies
around my area and it just wentfrom there and it has only
(02:44):
really become very popular, I'dsay, in the last five years.
So it's super nice for me nowto not have to try to encourage
people to put in a pond or toadd a bee garden or to take out
all the weeds.
Like, people are more embracingof things being natural, which
is amazing.
People are more embracing ofthings being natural, which is
(03:05):
amazing.
So and then people are alsokind of less squeamish and more
interested in the creepycrawlies and stuff like that.
So, yeah, it just went fromthere naturally.
And I also kind of have a bigliking for stonework and I'm
working with natural materials,usually granite.
And so I wouldn't really be intothe very hard uh, clean lines.
(03:28):
I have done it occasionally.
But, um, yeah, and, and Isuppose sound in the garden and
trying as as hard as possible,no matter how small the site is,
to put in as many differenttypes of habitats in a small
area so that you attract as muchdiversity as possible.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
So, yeah, I just, I love it, yeah, and so, yes,
that's like there's definitely,as we said, there's going to be
a lot of things we we will endup talking about here, because
you've mentioned habitats thereand the creation of habitats,
and you know natural productsand I suppose the more we move
away from those natural productsyou know natural woods, natural
(04:10):
stones, stone walls and we movetowards.
You know, the latest phase isthe is the porcelain tile, the
outdoor porcelain tile andtrends yeah, trends, yeah.
the more we move towards them,the less habitat there is,
habitat space there is left forvarious creatures within the
gardens, and so a wildlife pondis a brilliant thing to add in,
(04:35):
I suppose, so long as you'regoing to get the establishment
right and then the ongoingmaintenance right.
So let's, let's go right backto the start on this one and, as
I say, we've covered creatingof a pond before I've covered,
you know, the measuring of theliner, the types of liner and
all that type of thing.
But let's say we have our holedug in the ground, we're
(04:57):
creating a wildlife pond hereand we have our liner gone in.
Let's start from scratch here,maybe even talk about the
excavation piece where we'retaking out layers, and I know
you have some thoughts on thataround the maintenance, ongoing
maintenance and so on.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
so yeah, so I find.
So engineering it out in yourhead and where it's to be is
really important.
So, generally, sun is importantfor everything and sort of no
trees locally, and I always kindof marry a pond into a flower
bed so that if there is acreature that wants to get there
, like frogs, that they're notgoing to be predated by
(05:33):
something from the sky, likemagpies or hedgehogs, can go and
drink peacefully and all thosethings.
So the situation of the pond isreally important and once
you've decided where it's going,what I generally do is I dig in
layers and I have my layersdepending on the plants that I
want to grow.
So that's a personal choice.
But obviously, with allgardening, the more diversity
(06:06):
would be, except the gradient onthe walls is a bit bigger and I
also make the pond.
So pretend you have a pondthat's sort of two meters long.
Add extra that I measure beyondwhere the water edge will be,
because then you don't think thething that I really hate is
(06:29):
being having the liner visibleso if you manage to bed in the
surround of your liner intolovely stone.
What happens and you bridge thesoil from the water with the
stone is you get a little kindof slushy, marshy area behind
the stone, which you can thenfill with other plants and
really what you're trying to dois make as many habitats as
(06:50):
possible, because in the wild,even though, yes, some of them
would be kind of a gentlysloping dish, that's not
practical going forward.
So you have to think five yearsahead, um, when you might have
to get in there in waders andclean it out.
So the the natural process ofthe pond would be that
everything degrades and holds tothe bottom, creates this lovely
(07:14):
sludge which usually stayssettled unless you have fish,
and I wouldn't recommendespecially having koi or any
kind of fishery in a pond,because they disrupt the balance
and they eat the insects andthey churn up the nutrients and
they'll always be fighting algaeand dirty water so they create
too much nutrients as well,don't they pardon?
Speaker 1 (07:33):
they like the likes of koi.
They create too much waste inthe pond as well.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, and it's an uphill battle.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, yeah and that drives up the nutrients, which
leads to more algae and animbalance.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, yeah, and they have their mouth is on the
bottom of their head with thebarbs, so they're designed to
shuffle around at the bottom andkeep the nutrients kind of
liberated into the water, whichis exactly what you don't want.
Um, so yeah, the structure andalso safety.
So if you dig a pond, that'slike a dish, like this, it's
(08:05):
really unsafe because you'll endup sliding into the middle of
it and even thinking forward, Idon't know if you've ever seen
reservoirs that have been builtwith really steep sides and they
get a puncture.
What ends up happening is thateverything in the middle, all
the wildlife, falls in and itdies.
So I'm even thinking that farahead that if something happens
in the future, all the wildlifefalls in and it dies.
And so I'm even thinking thatfar ahead that if something
(08:26):
happens in the future, I'm notgoing to be responsible for
stuff dying.
So I want to have all of myangles between the layers and
that that something could escapeif it wants to, or that there's
easy access in and out.
And then of adding logs isimportant because our species of
(08:47):
decomposing kind of log or woodinsects is really in decline,
especially the aquatic beetles.
So adding a log as a bridge,even for just the teeny, tiny
creepy crawlies, like it doesn'thave to be a tree is important,
and the small little frogletscan get in and out like that,
(09:08):
and it's adding a differentchemistry to the water too.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Like decomposition isn't necessarily a bad thing,
it's a natural process and this,these little logs now you're
talking about actually in thewater or in the water?
Okay?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
yeah, so so dipping in and out, so quite a lot of
the time I'd leave a gap where Iusually put stones around the
margin, like heavy naturalgranite stones, and then I might
have a log that will kind offit in between one and be going
into the water so that, um, youknow, algae form on all of these
(09:43):
surfaces and if you look reallyclosely you'll see tadpoles and
even the water kind of woodliceguy.
They're all doing jobs and innature there would be tree
boughs and things.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
So just trying to, if you imagine.
I always think that if you'retrying to create something,
imagine that you're one of thecreatures in the pond or all of
them, and try to recreate thehome that they would like to
have.
That's how I do it.
I'm in the mind of a tadpolegoing OK, what would my ideal
(10:18):
home be?
Speaker 1 (10:28):
yeah, so you're.
So you're looking for theselayers, and, and these layers
and these changes of texturewith, with the, with the shallow
area, the stone out into thevery soft marshy clay, yes, and.
And these are all habitats for,I guess, different creatures,
but also suitable areas fordifferent plants.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yes, you would have temperatures as well okay,
different temperatures duringthe seasons, yeah, and then a
lot of the time what I do is,even with the big grant, I'll
add in different sizes of rocksall the way down to sand,
because there's lots of thecaddisflies.
They all use different thingsto make their homes again and
(11:02):
again it's it's changing thewater chemistry depending on
what the substrate is so all of,and there's a lot of stuff that
we don't know as well, remember.
So keeping things simplesometimes is easier, but the
more complexity and the additionof, as you said, the textures
and the plants that you add, themore likely there's something
(11:25):
there that we don't even knowabout that you're helping.
So just mimicking a habitat innature and obviously using as
much as possible native plantsboth the side and in the water,
and having sort of a herbaceousborder is totally fine, but
sticking the odd, what we woulddeem weed into it and allow it
(11:47):
to grow yeah yeah, so, yeah, soas many as possible.
And then another thing with thereally small ponds, um, you
might find that that'll heat upquite quickly and be a totally
different type of habitat.
So if you want um it to be moreuniform, you might have to put
in a deeper area to keep thetemperature consistent and get
(12:09):
those nice convection currentsgoing in the water so that it
maintains sort of um astable-ish temperature, rather
than, if it's really shallow,it's fine, it's great for birds
and um a lot of sort oftransient insects that are
populating it in the summermonths, but it mightn't be good
for somebody else.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
So if you'd wanted both, say, you might create
quite a big dish area, marginalarea and then a deep area, like
anything is possible in natureyeah, and obviously like nature,
if you have, for example, youhave a little oak barrel that
you want to, if you're in areally small garden and you want
to create a little wildlifepond in that, as, as we've seen
(12:51):
on gardeners world several times, they've created these little
little ponds and so on.
But what we're saying here nowis that that'll be a totally
different habitat habitat towhat you will have if you create
a larger one with thesedifferent layers, with a stable
temperature and so on.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
So just an overwintering possibility, but
the barrel is great as well.
The only thing I'd ever sayabout barrels or any of them
just given in and out and intoand out of, because what I see
actually a lot in thecountryside are troughs with
drowned bumblebees in them.
I think a lot of creatures ifyou had a garden and bumblebees
in them.
I think a lot of creatures ifyou had a garden and there was
no water for miles around, whichis quite possible and you have
(13:30):
a barrel.
A lot of the time you'regetting you're visiting insects
just to drink and if they fallin they will drown.
So always have some sort of um,a textural thing doesn't have
to be a log, it could be a bitof fabric that's going in so
that they have purchased to beable to climb out should they
fall in okay, yeah yeah, sosomething like a little, a
(13:52):
little ladder effectively yeah,a little ramp yeah yeah, yeah
yeah
Speaker 1 (13:58):
and so let's say we're going up to a bigger size.
Now we're.
We know we can create awildlife pond in a small, in a
small barrel or such um, butit's going to be a limited, a
limited range of you know, ofcreatures that are going to come
in there just because of the ofthe nature of it.
So let's say we're creating theperfect wildlife pond in a
(14:19):
garden, yeah, and what would theminimum size that we would
start with?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Oh, I think on average two or three meters long
is.
Is is fine to attract.
I mean obviously the biggersort of, not not the bigger the
better.
But yeah, two, three meterswould be if you had a small
garden like that's.
That's quite adequate.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
That's quite big, in fact yeah um and achievable yeah
, so at three meters, then let'ssay we've three meters and it's
, you know, similarish width orwhatever, and we've, we've
created our, our layers and ourzones.
And I saw on on your instagramyou were creating a garden in in
bloom, I think was for fingal,was it?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
oh, I grew the plants I didn't make the garden, you
grew the plants yeah, and thatwas a suds garden, so that's
another really important topicactually, that now the county
councils are using um the suds,so the basically the using of
water from suburbia and urbanareas to recycle into the land
(15:27):
rather than it going into stormwater yeah, that's another.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
That's another area.
We'll chat about that in aminute.
Actually beforehand I hadn'tthought of that, but I was at a
brilliant conference in thespringtime there and it was all
about suds.
So we might, we might come backon that one in a second so yeah
, it's brilliant and there'ssome brilliant concepts there.
Might.
We might come back on that onein a second.
So, yeah, it's brilliant andthere's some brilliant concepts
there, but we'll come back tothat one in a second.
So, on the, on the, on theplants then, so you grew, you
(15:52):
grew them.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I didn't realize, yeah, so I'm growing my plants
for my customers and I'mdiversifying and trying to get
as many species as possible.
Um, even if they're tiny,little, minuscule little guys, I
think they're all important.
As we know, usually there is aninsect or some sort of a
creature involved specificallywith a plant and a lot of the
(16:13):
time we just don't know.
So, for instance, I use thewater dock, which you pretty
much never see.
I've never seen it in the wild.
I'm starting to put that intoponds Now.
It does just look like a dockleaf, a giant dock leaf.
I think it's gorgeous.
But we have an extinct insectcalled the large copper, which
is a gorgeous butterfly.
(16:34):
It's also extinct in the UK,but basically because we've
drained our lands and we'veruined the habitat that these
giant docks grow in.
And it's not that they can'tgrow the docks, they can, but
there's something so complexgoing on there that nobody knows
why the reintroductions didn'twork.
So I'm trying to um grow adiverse range of species that
(17:00):
and they look unusual as welllike there's another plant that
you probably know, the devil'switscabious, yeah, and the marsh
fertility butterfly is hisfavorite plant, and so, and
they're also beautiful.
So, as many of those plantsthat I can grow and put into the
ponds that I create.
(17:20):
They don't just look unusual,but they could be doing
something good that we don'teven know.
Or they could also be a plantstock and for wild habitats,
when, eventually, hopefully, wedo a bit more re-wetting and
there might be a bit moregenetic diversity, if the plants
are are in urban gardens andand on farm gardens, like
(17:44):
wouldn't it be amazing if we andI know we do have lots of farm
ponds, but farm ponds, I thinkuh will also be very important
for sort of the spreading, there-spreading of these species
that are in in decline yeah, andso the plants, the plants then
that we're going to put intothis pond.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Let's start in the in the deep, in the deep areas and
I know you're not going to talkabout water lilies and things
like that, so let's.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
I like water lilies.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I put in water lilies .
That's actually the only onethat's not native that I put in,
but I have the native theyellow lily, but I haven't the
yellow lily, but I haven't.
I've only had the guts to putthat into one pond because it it
can be invasive.
It has to be a big pond and youhave to tell people this is
(18:33):
native, this is massive, itcould kind of go a bit wild, and
so that's why you would need toput a management plan in place
to say, okay, you're gettingthis plant, it is native, this
is potentially what it could do.
The same with them, some of thereeds potentially they might
damage a liner.
So you sort of have to hash out, um, the pros and cons of
(18:56):
things and the plants that youuse, or, um, the area that
you're in and what you might beallowed to put in or not.
So so the deep water Idefinitely would be putting in
the lilies just because they'regorgeous and I'm not a total
purist, I'm still a gardener um,so, no, they are gorgeous.
(19:16):
And then, um, the I'm thebulrush.
Some people call it reed mace.
It's.
It would be sort of uh, deepish water and it's a bit.
Some people call it reed mace.
It would be sort of deep-ishwater and it's a bit of a.
I call it my migratory plant.
It always goes where it wantsto go, not where I put it.
So most pond plants willmigrate.
They just do what they want todo.
(19:37):
So you put them in, you keep aneye on them and they're putting
their tendrils down going.
Actually I like this level abit better, which is totally
fine, and then you might evenmove them to there or repot them
, and you shouldn't really haveto repot.
So if we're talking about smallponds, where plants are in
crates, they're not in theground, you should really get
(19:59):
three years if you've potted upnicely and you have a decent
specimen, if you've caught it upnicely and you have a decent
specimen.
Or what you can do sometimes isyou can get a secateurs and you
can cut away the edges thatgrow out.
So there's another plant that Iuse that's debatable whether
it's native or not.
It's called sweet galangal andit's in a lot of ponds.
(20:19):
It looks like a kind of carexsedge thing.
It's beautiful, flowing in thewind and it's amazing for water
quality.
So it would be quite deep aswell and it has these beautiful
fibrous roots that come out ofthe pot and they're absorbing
the nutrients.
So you can get away withpruning back to the pot for a
(20:40):
few years and then you wouldneed to lift and divide, and the
same would go for most of theplants.
The Marshmary Gold is a greatplant, so it would be a little
bit higher up, closer to themargin, and if you want to
propagate from it, you basicallydip the flower in the water and
leave it attached to the plantand it will grow new little
(21:02):
plantlets that you can cut offand plant.
Brilliant, yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
And then out into the outer zones.
What are we planting out there?
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Well, ironically, the outer zones are a funny one, so
aesthetically in nature, itwould be that the big rushes
would be your backdrop, but thatdoesn't really work.
So the calta would be one, or,sorry, the marsh marigold would
be one of them.
The spearworts I also have thislovely plant and it's a bit of
(21:33):
a tricky one called tubularwater dropwort, which is quite
rare in the wild, and it hasthese massive uh tubular stems
that sort of need support.
So if you manage in um, a lakeor a turlock in the wild, you'd
have all these plants growing inconjunction with each other and
(21:55):
they all support each other, abit like a wildflower meadow.
You need sort of the, thebamboos that we would use with
their other plants.
So this plant grows tall and buthe would be in the margins and
has lovely umbelifer uh flowersthat all the insects love.
So I would grow them a lot,kind of dot them all alongside
(22:17):
each other so that they propeach other up when they're in
the wind.
Because when you're walkingtowards a pond in a normal
garden you sort of don't wantyour view blocked but at the
same time you have to put yourplants where they're going to be
happiest, and the irises, ofcourse, are great in that area
too.
Um, I do use the, the purpleone, which isn't native, and
(22:42):
obviously the yellow flag, butyou want to keep an eye on the
yellow flag because he can be abruiser.
Um, yeah, so they're beautiful.
They're absolutely gorgeousflowers, yeah yeah, um, and then
the sedges and grasses, and I'mstarting to grow these tiny
little rushes.
Uh, so there's one um calledjointed rush and, uh, bulbous
(23:06):
rush, and they're only.
They're only teeny, tiny little.
Now, depending on the soil,obviously they'll grow bigger if
you give them more nutrients.
But again, these little thingsdotted around and water mosses
and some of the hornworts, Ijust really like to mix it up.
So usually people will blockplant, which is more impressive.
(23:27):
But having it evenlydistributed, the little and and
the big, they all help eachother and they all have kind of
a symbiotic relationship witheach other, and I'm assuming the
microbiome as well and thecreatures.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
So and in terms of time then.
So we we've, you know we've.
We've dug out our pond with thedifferent layers and we've done
our planting.
Now it's going to take time, asyou said, to build up this
symbiotic relationship and foreverything to come into balance.
Does it take?
I know you'll get, you'll getsome creatures coming in quite
quickly, but how long is itbefore it starts to function
(24:05):
fully?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
uh, I would say fairly quickly, depends on how
many plants you put in.
So if you're, if you don't putenough plants in, you'll always
be fighting an uphill battlewith your water quality.
So I nearly rather put in toomany plants and be taking them
out of its skin.
Now, just because the clientsaid put in whatever you want,
(24:33):
and I added the logs, and Iadded the different layers, the
different grades of pebble andsand and as many plants as
possible and sort of within theweek that it went in, I had
insects arriving and nowadaysare a very nicely rewilded site,
so they probably had loads tobegin with.
Yeah, um, but definitely withinone year.
(24:55):
You should see, um, stuffshould arrive like within.
If you put in water and you'vegot frogs in your garden,
they're going to be thereinstantly.
They're not going to ignore it,you know and what about?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
what about if you don't have frogs?
So, um, you might, you mightstart to pick up.
I have have in my head here thethought of doing quite a big
wildlife pond at some point inthe near future.
Years ago, when I was a child,around here, frogs and toads
were quite plentiful, and Ihaven't seen one in I don't know
(25:31):
how long I really don't knowhow long it is since I saw a
frog.
Very very, very luckily yeah, um, and there's probably a few
factors at play there, and mostof which are outside my control.
But yeah, I'm wondering if, I'mwondering if, if, if I do put
in, you know know, a bigwildlife pond, how likely am I
(25:53):
to get frogs?
I know I can introduce themfrom up the road.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I would say you might be surprised to be honest.
Like we don't see them.
A lot of people say to me it'sonly because I'm working with
them that I see them all thetime.
But there are plenty of peoplethat are out in nature that
don't see them.
They're designed to not be seenbecause you're technically a
predator.
So they might be there andyou're not seeing them, but, um,
no, I think that if you left itlike, obviously they spawn
(26:21):
around valentine's day, that'sthe amplexus, um, so I would
definitely wait and see what youget.
Now.
The other thing about buildinga very big pond is you're going
to attract birds and if youattract ducks, they have a great
time with the spawn and they'rereally specific and amazing
that they'll eat the yolk out ofthe jelly.
So you might come out one dayand you feel like you've got
(26:44):
acres of spawn and by the nextfew days it's just turned into
goo because you've had ducksarrive and they eat it.
And there's another reallyinteresting dynamic between
frogs and newts.
So I have some ponds that haveboth and some ponds that have
graduated from frogs to justnewts, and the reason that is is
because the frogs come earlierand lay.
(27:06):
As I said, it used to beValentine's Day.
Now, because of climate change.
It can vary from january, right, it can go on for two months,
okay, and so they arrive first.
But that doesn't mean that thenewts aren't there.
And the newts don't lay untilaround may and they lay an
individual egg wrapped in thefoliage of aquatic plants.
(27:28):
So what happens is is the frogsdo their business.
They go off about, uh, eating,getting fattening up after
laying, and the newts come inand they fatten themselves up
the same way the ducks do, andthey eat the yolks.
So sometimes in a small pondyou'll see this floating mass of
frogs born with no black dots,and that might be because you
have newts.
(27:48):
So sometimes they can get ridof that population of frogs by
preventing the theself-propagation of those frogs.
So it's a really interestingthing yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I don't think I'd be building something that big that
will attract ducks.
Um, that's yeah.
No, that that wouldn't be anissue like when I say big um not
acres no, not acres, no, on thebigger end of a garden, of a
garden wildlife pond.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
I think you'll be surprised.
And if you're not surprisedthen yeah, technically we're not
supposed to move them.
But I'm always saying to peopleyou know, there's plenty of
places that you can go to.
I've been called out to manyrescues where a pond is being
got rid of and in that caseobviously you're going to rescue
the wildlife and bring them tosomewhere else you know, and
(28:38):
then once they have a handle onit, you're, they're never
leaving you.
Um, and also I, I quite oftenrescue frog spawn from mountain.
You know the gullies thatquails have on either side of
the roads.
They quite often lay in themand then they dry out.
So rescuing that spawn fromdrying out is not a bad thing in
(28:58):
my opinion yeah, that's whereI've seen a lot now locally.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Is is in those gullies at the side of forestry
lanes.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah, yeah, exactly so you'd be doing a good thing
by yeah you're letting them beresidents in your new pond okay,
so, um, that's kind of thewildlife pond.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Is there anything we've missed there?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
for somebody that's looking to to create one um um,
I think that the habitat besidethe pond is important as well.
Um, so again with the stone andlogs are so important.
So, so, if you build a pond, ifyou want your frogs to stay
over the winter or have a safehidey place, piles of stones and
(29:39):
it doesn't have to be an uglypile of stone like somebody
dumped a barrel load of rocks inyour garden, but that's also
effective.
But, yeah, having layers ofstone with little gaps in it is
super important, like if you onso many maintenance projects or
I do a lot of refurbishments.
So somebody that's had a pondfor 30 years and it's suddenly
(30:01):
leaking and a loved one built itand I try and rebuild it nearly
exactly as they did.
They quite often have rubbleall around them and it's alive
with frogs and cool insects.
But there's a really cool umwoodlice that's pink and he's
specifically yeah, he's reallycool.
I was reading up on him theother day and he specifically
(30:23):
likes caves and weirdly they'refound more in um the protestant
churchyards than cath, becauseback in the day the Protestants
used a different type of mortar,apparently, which is more
attractive to this little guy.
It's on Wikipedia, you can lookit up, so you'll get all those
(30:44):
really cool things that, like it, might look like nothing to you
, but it's a home for somebody.
And again, the hedgehog housesum, oh, be, uh.
Bumblebee houses are reallyeasy to make, so within your
pile of rocks.
Or you can make it nicely likea dry stone wall with some
plants on it.
You can get an upturnedterracotta pot a bit of hose out
(31:09):
of where the drainage willusually be and prop it up on
some rocks and get a chickenwire ball.
Just make a little ball andstuff some dried grass into it
and have no I lie, sorry thehose to go underneath the main
opening and put a cap on the topand just put that into your
(31:29):
wall and if they use it, theyuse it, but if it's not there,
they can't use it and so thatthat's, that's for bumblebees,
bumblebees, terranian bumblebees, yeah, okay, just I know, I
know we spoke about this theother day a little bit, but, um,
we'll, we'll delve into itslightly, creating a proper
bumblebee house, and I know ourhabitat and I know you don't
(31:52):
like the word bumblebee hotel,as, as you will see, or b hotel.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Um, how, what's the proper, what's the proper way of
doing this, or what are the?
Key points, because I know someof them that you'll see the
fancy ones in.
You know that you can buythey're not functional at all.
They might look pretty and soon, but they're not functional.
So function wise.
What?
What are the key things?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I can't keep it simple, like there's another
thing you can do.
It sounds gross, but hoverflieslike to lay in kind of gooey
disgustingness, um, in kind offorest uh ponds where there's
decay, so you can just put abucket in a shady place, put
water in it sounds gross a bitof soil, leaves, logs, and then
(32:38):
top it up with um sort of leaflitter and they will lay in
there, um, so that's one habitat.
Let's say then the minor beeslike a sandy area, whether that
actually works or not, that youcan create that habitat that
they like, I don't know, butthere's no harm in leaving some
sand out.
The leaf cutting bees are supereasy.
(33:00):
Just get a log, drill someholes in.
It has to be placed in a southfacing area because they need
that heat.
Again, the bumblebee hut, likeall the separate.
And again the bumblebee hut,like all the separate.
I I just don't feel myself thatwith the hotels that everybody
is going to occupy it at thesame time, um, and they're
freestanding, I imagine becausethey're freestanding, they
(33:23):
probably get bombarded by theweather and winter and might,
like animals and insects, needcover.
Um, so leaving your leaves onthe ground as much, not cutting
things back until as late aspossible as you can leave it
because, as you know yourselffor instance, we were talking
about knapweed before within theheads of a lot of these flowers
(33:44):
are overwintering insects, andnot only are they overwintering,
but the birds know they'reoverwintering, so the birds are
going to come in and have theirprotein snack.
So, the more things I thinkthat you can leave and
undisturbed.
You're probably doing more thatway than you are by buying one
of these expensive houses that Ithink a lot of them have paint
(34:06):
on them like I don't know howthat can be good, but, yeah,
leaving.
Or again, like a log on theground If you turn over a log,
the cool ground beetles.
So the ground beetles arereally important as well.
All of the insects together,just stone wood, the leaf cutter
(34:28):
bees, believe it or not.
Um, roses, I think the bestbecause they have that again.
If I was in the bee mentality.
They have a lovely rigid feelto their leaves.
So if you have a rose gardenmaybe you should have a few logs
and a few holes in it if youdon't want, or if you, if you
don't mind holes, cutting yourleaves yeah, it makes sense and
we spoke about it before.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
ground beetles are brilliant for slugs, so for the
control of slugs, like so, yeah,all of these, all of these
things have have a function and,as you say, we don't, most of
the time we don't understandeverything that's happening
there, or even even, to behonest, a large part of it.
But if you, if you understandit's a bit like soil health you
you won't know everything that'sgoing on down there, but by
(35:11):
looking after the soil, byimproving the soil, you know
that there's good thingshappening, and I suppose that's
what the aim is.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
I've seen you.
As part of one of your ponds,you created a hedgehog house.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
That's right.
Yeah, that was in a beetle bank, so I love beetle banks because
I think beetles are amazing.
So don't forget that on yourexcavation.
You have all of this lovelysoil and you might, depending on
how deep your soil is, you'llhave different.
Um, the soil horizon could beinclude loads of really cool
(35:45):
soil, because I love soil aswell.
Why wouldn't you, if you're agardener?
And the hedgehog house in thebeetle bank I used unfortunately
, I used a lot of ash dieback,because I think what's happening
with the ash dieback is, yes,it's a crop that we can harvest
to burn, but then we'rereleasing the carbon.
(36:05):
Think about that in the longterm and try to use a lot of
these trees for good to lock inthe carbon.
I'm now building beaker bankslike a log wall either facing,
facing in sort of like a disc.
I did it for a very big pond ona research farm and then you
(36:26):
backfill with soil so you havethe opportunity there to create
all kinds of houses within thatbank.
So I created a long tunnel infor the hedgehog, because they
like a long entrance and theylike to kind of go up the way,
because if it's deeper than theoriginal soil level of what
you're constructing.
They could be.
It could get flooded or damp.
(36:47):
So you kind of build up a ramp,put a gravelly sort of a bottom
in it and then cap it and youcan either put grass in.
But to be honest, I think withmost animals they don't like
what we choose for them and Idon't blame them.
So if you are lucky enough toget a hedgehog, it'll do its own
bedding.
And now they do say that youcan't have hedgehogs and badgers
(37:11):
together.
I don't fully believe that,they say, and it is true that
badgers will predate hedgehogs,but I don't know anyone lucky
enough to have both of them intheir garden has to be sort of
(37:34):
safe enough that no baddies canget in there and take the young.
And I think I built a stoathouse as well.
Um, like there's so much.
We have the internet at ourfingertips.
It's when you're planning apond.
I would go do a deep dive onthe internet on all of the
different creatures that benefitfrom water and see what little
things that you can do to helpthose animals.
And because in yourconstruction phase you have that
(37:57):
opportunity to put in all theseextra little houses and use the
native plants surrounding againlike the easiest plant to grow
in disrupted soil would befoxgloves.
You just throw the seed in andaway it goes, and you know.
Then you can decide afterwards.
You don't have to have a grandplan either.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
You can just do it as it as it comes along yeah, yeah
for sure, um, it's there's,there's the world of, of, um, I
suppose way there's loads ofthings we could still talk about
on that.
And my head is ticking awayhere.
I'm trying to, I'm evenpicturing that as you were
talking there.
I'm picturing where I'm puttingit and uh, yeah, cool kind of
(38:38):
have.
I have the idea already, andwhen you were mentioning it,
it's it'll be at the bottom of aslope and that slope is
actually a really shaley bankalready.
So I think the yeah, the logwall, that's another really
important topic is your soil.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
So, um, digging wise, that can be there, because of
course there's different thingsthat you can use.
I haven't had the privilege yetof using bentonite, um, but
according to your soil, youmight be lucky enough to be able
to dig a decent hole and it bea natural pond, in which case it
has totally differentmanagement.
But if you're using liners andso the shady stuff, the sandy
(39:15):
stuff, it can be really trickyto maintain the structure, but
you have to be so carefulbecause it just falls away,
whereas if you've got reallydeep clay, uh, solid, like rock
solid stuff, it's nearly likecutting concrete, you know yeah,
yeah um I should have where I'mputting it, I should have both.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
So down, down down, the bottom part is going to be
there'll be a little bit oftopsoil and then it'll be a
subsoil which around here,because this is an old coal
miling area, you have quitemarley stuff now.
It's not going to be goodenough to hold water completely,
um, but it certainly will beeasy enough to shape once you
get down a little bit.
But then it's because it'sagain an old coal miling area
(39:57):
there's these kind of littlebanks of shale around the fields
and one of those banks is wherewhere this will go, and it is
literally like shale.
But I won't be, I won't bedigging there.
It'll be down down slightlyfurther.
I'll be digging for that.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
So yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, it sounds very similar tothat pond that I was saying to
you, that I did about a year ago.
They're the same, so they havethis lovely marl at the bottom.
It's a delight to dig andbecause it just it's like you're
sculpting you know it justcomes away perfectly, whereas
the sandy stuff, oh, they'rerocks poking out, and in that
(40:30):
case, if you do have soil likethat, you want to take extra
precautions on how to protectyour liner.
Now, the ddpm liners areamazing, as you know.
You probably, in thosesituations, would want to do
sand underlay liner and as youget bigger, you might want to
use a geotextile on top.
Um, but um, yeah, it soundslike you'll have.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Uh, it's fun to do as well to make your shapes yeah,
should we just why did you saygeotherm?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
so your sand geoliner , yeah yeah, so on this very big
pond, um, I did.
The geotextile is this verythick black geotextile and what
it allows you to do is to putrocks in on top.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, now I get it yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Yeah, and basically it's like and it also wicks.
So if you've got a massive areawith a liner and the surface
area of the pond is quite bigand you get a hot day.
You've got a lot of evaporationday, you've got a lot of
evaporation.
So to prevent the liner frombeing damaged by a water drop
that isn't being filled, thegeotextile on top will have
capillary action out to thesides, which will marry into the
(41:38):
.
It just makes it a little bitmore.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yeah, yeah, no, makes sense now.
I was wondering why that wasfor a second.
Yeah, yeah, only in big pondsare you that that big pond that
we're talking about on theresearch farm you allowed?
Talk about that, or I don'tknow so okay, we park it, it's a
it's a very big one, though,isn't?
it yeah yeah, okay, so we won'tsay anything about that one.
And then in uh, we, we mentionedit briefly earlier on in
(42:02):
relation to suds and just sopeople are aware, with a lot of
home gardeners won't be aware ofwhat it is.
Obviously a lot of our landscapearchitects and garden designers
are very much aware of it nowand it's it's a way of
essentially in layman's terms,it's a way of slowing down water
(42:23):
exiting your site or beingcaptured on your site.
Essentially, and trying totrying to slow it down initially
is the big thing and thentrying to do something with that
water that is slowed down.
So, for example, if you have 10down pipes off your house and
your outbuildings and whereverthey go, that they're not just
(42:43):
being rushed off the site, thatthey go through a sort of a
catchment area and that itbreaks the flow so that they're
not just flowing off downsomewhere else, and and they're
trying to do that on a biggerscale, especially in urban areas
, to slow down the exit of wateryeah, essentially it's a great
idea and all the councils havetaken it on board and I think
(43:04):
they have to actually yeah andand it makes huge sense because
we have so many problems withcertain cities and towns with
floodwaters on rivers becauseessentially, we've canalised a
lot of waterways to suitourselves and we've eliminated
the floodplains and all of thehard surfaces within urban areas
, it's all just going tostormwater, going to stone water
(43:32):
or storm water.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
so I try to encourage people to do, if they're
changing their driveway, simplethings like please get gravel
instead of, you know, tarmac orconcrete, and because it's a
slower percolation, it's notjust going straight out onto the
road.
Or again, you can, youabsolutely can use your downpipe
to fill your pond and havemaybe a percolation area around
the pond, because don't forgetthat if your pond is filling
(43:55):
from your roof, that you willalso need an overflow in your
garden and that will need to beplanted accordingly, and.
But it's a great idea and I hopeit kind of gets a bit more
promoted in the public eye,because there's so many
individuals that could just makea different decision.
That would help with it.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Yeah, and again, like this can be done in home
gardens as well.
Examples of that were at thisconference in the springtime.
There were some brilliantexamples and I forget it was
from some town council in the UKsamples and I forget it was
from some town council in the UK, but essentially where they
taught people how to capturewater into some form of a tank,
(44:38):
basically at the bottom of theirdownpipe, and they slowed it
firstly by the water was comingdown chains, which obviously
looked good, sounded good.
When it got there, there was awhole load of of of different
layers, like you were talkingabout your layers in your pond,
so there was three or fourdifferent depths within this
tank.
Essentially, now, it was abeautiful tank.
(44:58):
It wasn't just a um, you know,water tank.
It was.
It was painted up and it lookedreally good.
It was planted and then theyhad different layers in it and
then at the end you had youroverflow.
So the water exited then as itwould, but in the meantime it
had been slowed down.
It was feeding an ecosystemwhich had lots of different
(45:18):
plants, lots of differentinsects and, yeah, it was just
slowing the water down and therewas a habitat there as well
yeah and it was.
It was beautiful and they weretrying to replicate this.
It was done on some of the someof the town buildings and they
did demos on it and then peoplewere able to take that away on a
smaller scale and do it intheir homes.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
So it was, yeah, it was really good yeah, I think in
some of the big town plans nowdon't they have um designs for
wetlands within the city to doexactly that on a bigger scale.
So they, I think they even havetanks in the ground and they
would have a wetland systemwhere then, of course, the water
is filtered.
So by the time it gets to thestreams and the rivers it's not
(46:01):
full of all the stuff that wehave in in our atmosphere that's
poisonous to all those aquaticanimals and plants so yes, it's
really positive thing yeah, tellus a little bit about your
business, so obviously yourday-to-day.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
You mentioned that you're calling to, uh, these
little old ladies that havetheir problems, but yeah,
they're great yeah yeah, um, soyou have all these, you have all
these ponds.
So you're you're doing main,you're doing maintenance in sort
of older established ponds,revamps in some creation of new
(46:34):
ones.
So just tell us about your kindof day-to-day, week-to-week day
.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Well, yeah, so it's exactly that.
So generally what I try to doin the winter months I'm doing
maintenance, and because I havea cut off ish time before
Valentine's Day and so manypeople ring me in January going
can you get to my pond?
What about the frogs?
Because everybody knows that ifthey tell me that there's an
animal endangered, I'll be theretomorrow.
And so I try to do themaintenance stuff over the
(47:00):
winter months and because it'sconstruction is is difficult
enough in Ireland, uh, in theground uh, let alone being in
December or January, and andthen sort of from spring on I
would be doing construction ongreenfields and reconstruction,
and I'm growing my own plantsfor those ponds as much as I can
(47:21):
, and so that is is part of itas well, and then going forward,
I would also maintain thoseponds and then lots of times I
would then build herbaceousslash wildflower beside that.
So I do garden design as well,but not kind of conventional
stuff Like there'd have to be afew weeds in there.
(47:44):
And I have one client she won'tmind me saying she comes out
every time and I built her a bigwaterfall for her and there's
this one persistent dandelionand she comes out and she's like
actually I'm watching you, nowyou have to take it out, I'm not
leaving until you take it out.
So that kind of thing.
And um, and people I think overthe years get a bit more
(48:07):
embrace of of allowing things togrow.
So that same lady, I did um abee garden for her and this year
, now, to be fair, tree wastaken down so probably has more
light.
Um, but I tried to to do what I, what I said to you earlier
please don't cut back anythinguntil as late as you can like
(48:28):
the end of January, february, ifyou really have to and and
allow some of the weeds to growand do an annual weed maybe, or
twice weed, but, um, I just findthat the plants grow amazingly
together.
And also another thing that Iwould try and encourage all of
my pond and garden people to dois never leave the soil naked
(48:50):
ever.
Um, because, uh, nature hatesthat, nature hate the void, and
so I'd be doing that as well.
So I have, I'll do maintenance,garden maintenance, well,
adjacent pond garden maintenancefor my clients as well, um, but
just those ones.
So I wouldn't be, I wouldn't bedoing normal like grass cutting
(49:11):
or that kind of thing.
So, um, yeah, and then, andthen with those clients, if I
put in a new pond, I would saythat usually they don't need to
see me back for maybe threeyears, unless something goes
drastically wrong.
Um, another thing I'm startingto do now is with green water
problems.
I'm introducing daphnia insteadof any kind of like.
(49:34):
I'm really anti all chemicalsand I've had to fight a lot of
people for years.
But so there's, I'm sure youknow, about blanket wheat.
Everybody hates blanket wheatand duckweed.
So with blanket wheat is aninteresting.
So many people are tempted touse chemicals and, to be fair,
they do work, just in thatperiod.
(49:54):
But if you imagine you've got abody of water and you have this
blanket weed that you hate, thereason that it's there is
because there's nutrients togrow.
It's meant to be there.
So if you remove it and youconsistently remove it and you
grow more plants, eventuallyyou'll deplete the nutrient
stock in the water and it won'thave somewhere to go.
However, if you kill it, whathappens is it rots, it goes to
(50:19):
the bottom and the cycle iscontinuing.
So you will forever have tokill it with that chemical.
So, even though it's a long sortof frame to finally eliminating
it or keeping it on amanageable level, you do have to
put in the hard graft to removeit and the best times to remove
it.
So it starts to really flourishin May and it has this really
(50:43):
annoying phase where when youtouch it, it breaks apart and
goes everywhere.
It's really frustrating, and soyou have to wait for it to be a
bigger, thicker plant, where itrises to the top and it kind of
goes a limey green with bubblesin it, and then you can easily
stand in and wrap your handsaround it like big clumps and
(51:05):
it's fantastic in the compostheap.
So use nature to your advantage.
Don't fight anything, unlessit's a non-native thing.
It's a non-native, off with itshead.
But if it's a native, um, it'spart of a cycle and it's not
your fault or anybody's fault.
It's just.
It's just something that youhave to think your way around
(51:27):
and manage it accordingly.
That's my, my opinion anyway.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Yeah, it's a very clever way of looking at it
because, as you say, if thatblanket weed gets at you, that
decomposes on the bottom of thepond and away your cycle goes
again.
So you don't solve the problem.
You're constantly in atreatment phase, as opposed to a
slightly more, as you said, aslightly slower approach, but a
(51:51):
more balanced approach thatgives, that gives you this full
balance in time exactly andremember that it's doing a job
for you yeah, yeah, it's therefor a reason like plant the
weeds, not the enemy.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
It's actually taking nutrients out.
Then you take those nutrientsout, you put them in your
compost heap and youredistribute nutrients every you
know somewhere else.
Like it's photosynthesis, it'sa veiling of something that's
there.
So fighting it isn't workingwith it.
I think working with nature allthe time proves better.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
So where can?
So that's, that's your kind ofday to day stuff creating,
maintaining, building habitatsand the plants and the plants to
to go with your ponds in ingardens, and where can people
find you?
Where's the best place to getin contact with you or email?
Speaker 2 (52:40):
address.
I only have social me.
I only have instagram.
At the moment I do mean tobuild a website but, like with
everything, I'm a bit more, moresort of outside most of the
time rather than inside.
So, yeah, I bit the bullet andI did the social media thing.
I think it was last year andjust because I knew that I'm me
(53:00):
knowing me that's all over theplace the whole time that the
likelihood that I was going tosit down at a computer and do it
was low.
So the social media has justbeen an easy out, and I know
that not everybody is on socialmedia, um, so, uh, I do sort of
word of mouth as well, like Imainly work in Dublin, wicklow
(53:23):
and Galway, um, but I mean I cango further afield.
But I think, and I do advisoryon for people if they want to
build their own with their owncrew, so I can do a plan and a
design with the different plantsand elements and creatures that
(53:43):
you want to attract, doing kindof hybrid swim pond, uh,
wildlife ponds now as well, withthat design in mind that it's a
little bit more naturalistic.
And I wouldn't be I don't havemy digger driving tickets just
yet, so, um, don't know if I'dhave time for that as well I
(54:06):
noticed the just yet bit.
Yeah, I do, like diggers andtractors.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
We have covered an episode on natural swimming
pools, as it happens, and it wasan unusual episode for the
podcast, it wasn't a typical one, but it was hugely popular
actually, and continues to be,hugely popular oh.
Speaker 2 (54:26):
I think they're great .
Speaker 1 (54:29):
Yeah, brilliant, it was something that was in my
head for this pond and then Ididn't realize you just have to
sort of spark and something elsein my mind now that they could
be combined from my wildlifelovely stories to do with these
ponds.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
So it was a lady who bought her father's house.
Her father was incredible, sohe was in the orchid society,
built his own pond like thegarden.
He's just one of theseincredible people who did
everything.
And this old koi pond,completely dilapidated, full of
rushes I think it was builtmaybe 30, 40 years ago Plants
(55:08):
from the burn when you'reallowed to do that, maybe.
And um, when I finally hadreconstructed the insight to
allow for wildlife because a koipond is built quite differently
to wildlife ponds because theyneed so much depth, and I was
looking at it going, god, areyou sure you don't want to make
this into a swim pond?
She's like, no, actually youcan't make it into a swim pond,
(55:30):
but it wasn't that big and itabsolutely you could have.
You could have sat on that withyour glass of wine, no problem.
And so you don't have to bemassive, like you don't actually
have to be able to do lengthsin them okay, so just a dip yeah
, a little dip upon how bigwould it need to be?
that one was only was it threeor four meters long.
(55:53):
Now, to be fair, it was a meterand a half deep, I think,
because it was a koi pond, sotechnically you could sit on the
edge of that and be pretty muchsubmerged and you could tread
water if you tried really hard.
But it was perfect for it.
In fact, when I put it up Ithink I think I have it on my
social media somebody didcomment that looks like a small
swimming pool because it wasjust for it.
In fact, when I put it up Ithink I think I have it on my
social media somebody didcomment that looks like a small
(56:13):
swimming pool because it wasjust the shape of it.
It had been built so hard-sidedfor the koi and I then adapted
it for the wildlife.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
But you could absolutely sit in that if, if
you were so inclined, I would soI'll uh, I'll put the link to
your instagram in the show notes, but people can find you it's
pond girl ashley on on instagramand uh, yeah, if, if anyone is
not on instagram, just send mean email and I'll get ashley's
(56:44):
permission to pass on her emailaddress to you as well.
If, if, if you're inquiringabout any ponds, so typically
you're working in the WicklowDublin area and in the Galway
area yeah brilliant it's been.
Actually, it's been a reallyinteresting chat.
Um, my head is ticking awayhere in the background.
It's, uh, there's there's lotsthat I want to do with water in
(57:04):
the garden.
So, as I say, frogs used to seeloads of them, don't anymore.
That's, that's something thatI'd like to see back around the
place.
So, um, yeah I, I have, I haveplans anyway.
So you're after answering agood few of my of my questions
on those things and, yeah, thankyou very, very much for coming
on.
Master, my garden podcast thankyou.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
It's been lovely to talk to you and hopefully
there's loads of more inspiredpeople that are going to go out
and make lovely habitats for allour lovely creatures.
Speaker 1 (57:35):
Yeah for sure.
So that's been this week'sepisode.
A huge thanks, ashley, forcoming on.
Really interesting.
Jess, yeah, I knew beforehandthat this conversation would go
in a good few different ways,and it did.
And I forgot about suds, andthat's really really important
as well.
But the creation of a wildlifepond in your garden is hugely
beneficial.
We've spoke about it on thepodcast on numerous occasions
before and, as Ashley mentioned,that can be anything from a
(57:59):
small little barrel right up toa fully fledged wildlife pond,
just bearing in mind you knowthe, the principles and the
ideas that that Ashley mentionedcreating these different zones
that are suitable for all thesedifferent creatures that will
come.
So, as the saying goes, youbuild it and they'll come, but
if you follow the principlesthat you mentioned, you're
(58:19):
pretty sure of success with it.
And, yeah, loads of greatinformation there.
If anyone has any questions orwants to get in touch with
Ashley around any projects orupcoming projects and you're not
on on social media just send mea message and I'll get in touch
with Ashley.
And that's been this week'sepisode.
Thanks for listening and untilthe next time, happy gardening,
thank you.
how's it going, everybody, and welcome to
episode 286 of master, my gardenpodcast.
Now, this week's episode, we'regoing deeper into a topic that
we have covered in the past, andit's the creation and
maintenance of a wildlife pond.
So we have covered this before.
As I mentioned a few weeks agowith Brian and Gilly from
Wildacres.
We spoke about it then.
We've spoke about it previouslyin the creation of a garden
(00:36):
pond, but this week I haveAshley Dowling, who's an expert
in ponds.
She has a business all aroundthe creation of wildlife ponds
and ponds in general andanything really to do with water
in your garden.
She has a business all aroundthe creation of wildlife ponds
and ponds in general andanything really to do with water
in your garden.
She's also an expert atcreating habitats for the likes
of hedgehogs and so on in yourgarden and, yeah, she maintains
(00:56):
and creates from scratch.
So we're going to look at thecreation of a wildlife pond, but
also how you don't just dig ahole in the ground, fill it with
water and call that a wildlifepond.
That there is the sort ofconnection to your garden that
you need to do in order toensure that it does what it's
supposed to do there.
So we're going to go deep diveon this today.
So, ashley, you're very, verywelcome to Master my Garden
(01:16):
podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Thank you for having me delighted to be here to chat
about my favorite topic of alltime.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, we've been speaking off air, so it's
definitely your favorite topic.
So, um, I suppose, as I say,we've covered this a little bit
in the past and but not goneinto it in a deep way, and I
think, as we were chatting offair, it's it's clear that
wildlife ponds we'll talk abouttheir benefits in a minute and
they're hugely beneficial withinthe garden and ponds in general
um, but, as you said, it'sabout connecting them to, I
(01:46):
suppose connecting them to thegarden as, as opposed to just
dropping them there and hopingthat something finds it.
So, I suppose, firstly, how didyou get into ponds or where has
this?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
uh well, that's a yeah, that's a long story.
So I actually studiedagricultural science because I
wanted to be a farmer I still dobut I was disillusioned by what
, as advisors, you would have totell farmers to do with the
whole chemical thing.
So I had dug my first pond, Ithink when I was 13, and
(02:22):
continued to do so, and then Ithought I'd go into horticulture
and I kind of did branch intohorticulture and landscaping and
then I just loved ponds so muchthat I started doing
maintenance for garden ponds forthe lovely little old ladies
around my area and it just wentfrom there and it has only
(02:44):
really become very popular, I'dsay, in the last five years.
So it's super nice for me nowto not have to try to encourage
people to put in a pond or toadd a bee garden or to take out
all the weeds.
Like, people are more embracingof things being natural, which
is amazing.
People are more embracing ofthings being natural, which is
(03:05):
amazing.
So and then people are alsokind of less squeamish and more
interested in the creepycrawlies and stuff like that.
So, yeah, it just went fromthere naturally.
And I also kind of have a bigliking for stonework and I'm
working with natural materials,usually granite.
And so I wouldn't really be intothe very hard uh, clean lines.
(03:28):
I have done it occasionally.
But, um, yeah, and, and Isuppose sound in the garden and
trying as as hard as possible,no matter how small the site is,
to put in as many differenttypes of habitats in a small
area so that you attract as muchdiversity as possible.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
So, yeah, I just, I love it, yeah, and so, yes,
that's like there's definitely,as we said, there's going to be
a lot of things we we will endup talking about here, because
you've mentioned habitats thereand the creation of habitats,
and you know natural productsand I suppose the more we move
away from those natural productsyou know natural woods, natural
(04:10):
stones, stone walls and we movetowards.
You know, the latest phase isthe is the porcelain tile, the
outdoor porcelain tile andtrends yeah, trends, yeah.
the more we move towards them,the less habitat there is,
habitat space there is left forvarious creatures within the
gardens, and so a wildlife pondis a brilliant thing to add in,
(04:35):
I suppose, so long as you'regoing to get the establishment
right and then the ongoingmaintenance right.
So let's, let's go right backto the start on this one and, as
I say, we've covered creatingof a pond before I've covered,
you know, the measuring of theliner, the types of liner and
all that type of thing.
But let's say we have our holedug in the ground, we're
(04:57):
creating a wildlife pond hereand we have our liner gone in.
Let's start from scratch here,maybe even talk about the
excavation piece where we'retaking out layers, and I know
you have some thoughts on thataround the maintenance, ongoing
maintenance and so on.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
so yeah, so I find.
So engineering it out in yourhead and where it's to be is
really important.
So, generally, sun is importantfor everything and sort of no
trees locally, and I always kindof marry a pond into a flower
bed so that if there is acreature that wants to get there
, like frogs, that they're notgoing to be predated by
(05:33):
something from the sky, likemagpies or hedgehogs, can go and
drink peacefully and all thosethings.
So the situation of the pond isreally important and once
you've decided where it's going,what I generally do is I dig in
layers and I have my layersdepending on the plants that I
want to grow.
So that's a personal choice.
But obviously, with allgardening, the more diversity
(06:06):
would be, except the gradient onthe walls is a bit bigger and I
also make the pond.
So pretend you have a pondthat's sort of two meters long.
Add extra that I measure beyondwhere the water edge will be,
because then you don't think thething that I really hate is
(06:29):
being having the liner visibleso if you manage to bed in the
surround of your liner intolovely stone.
What happens and you bridge thesoil from the water with the
stone is you get a little kindof slushy, marshy area behind
the stone, which you can thenfill with other plants and
really what you're trying to dois make as many habitats as
(06:50):
possible, because in the wild,even though, yes, some of them
would be kind of a gentlysloping dish, that's not
practical going forward.
So you have to think five yearsahead, um, when you might have
to get in there in waders andclean it out.
So the the natural process ofthe pond would be that
everything degrades and holds tothe bottom, creates this lovely
(07:14):
sludge which usually stayssettled unless you have fish,
and I wouldn't recommendespecially having koi or any
kind of fishery in a pond,because they disrupt the balance
and they eat the insects andthey churn up the nutrients and
they'll always be fighting algaeand dirty water so they create
too much nutrients as well,don't they pardon?
Speaker 1 (07:33):
they like the likes of koi.
They create too much waste inthe pond as well.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, and it's an uphill battle.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, yeah and that drives up the nutrients, which
leads to more algae and animbalance.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, yeah, and they have their mouth is on the
bottom of their head with thebarbs, so they're designed to
shuffle around at the bottom andkeep the nutrients kind of
liberated into the water, whichis exactly what you don't want.
Um, so yeah, the structure andalso safety.
So if you dig a pond, that'slike a dish, like this, it's
(08:05):
really unsafe because you'll endup sliding into the middle of
it and even thinking forward, Idon't know if you've ever seen
reservoirs that have been builtwith really steep sides and they
get a puncture.
What ends up happening is thateverything in the middle, all
the wildlife, falls in and itdies.
So I'm even thinking that farahead that if something happens
in the future, all the wildlifefalls in and it dies.
And so I'm even thinking thatfar ahead that if something
(08:26):
happens in the future, I'm notgoing to be responsible for
stuff dying.
So I want to have all of myangles between the layers and
that that something could escapeif it wants to, or that there's
easy access in and out.
And then of adding logs isimportant because our species of
(08:47):
decomposing kind of log or woodinsects is really in decline,
especially the aquatic beetles.
So adding a log as a bridge,even for just the teeny, tiny
creepy crawlies, like it doesn'thave to be a tree is important,
and the small little frogletscan get in and out like that,
(09:08):
and it's adding a differentchemistry to the water too.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Like decomposition isn't necessarily a bad thing,
it's a natural process and this,these little logs now you're
talking about actually in thewater or in the water?
Okay?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
yeah, so so dipping in and out, so quite a lot of
the time I'd leave a gap where Iusually put stones around the
margin, like heavy naturalgranite stones, and then I might
have a log that will kind offit in between one and be going
into the water so that, um, youknow, algae form on all of these
(09:43):
surfaces and if you look reallyclosely you'll see tadpoles and
even the water kind of woodliceguy.
They're all doing jobs and innature there would be tree
boughs and things.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
So just trying to, if you imagine.
I always think that if you'retrying to create something,
imagine that you're one of thecreatures in the pond or all of
them, and try to recreate thehome that they would like to
have.
That's how I do it.
I'm in the mind of a tadpolegoing OK, what would my ideal
(10:18):
home be?
Speaker 1 (10:28):
yeah, so you're.
So you're looking for theselayers, and, and these layers
and these changes of texturewith, with the, with the shallow
area, the stone out into thevery soft marshy clay, yes, and.
And these are all habitats for,I guess, different creatures,
but also suitable areas fordifferent plants.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yes, you would have temperatures as well okay,
different temperatures duringthe seasons, yeah, and then a
lot of the time what I do is,even with the big grant, I'll
add in different sizes of rocksall the way down to sand,
because there's lots of thecaddisflies.
They all use different thingsto make their homes again and
(11:02):
again it's it's changing thewater chemistry depending on
what the substrate is so all of,and there's a lot of stuff that
we don't know as well, remember.
So keeping things simplesometimes is easier, but the
more complexity and the additionof, as you said, the textures
and the plants that you add, themore likely there's something
(11:25):
there that we don't even knowabout that you're helping.
So just mimicking a habitat innature and obviously using as
much as possible native plantsboth the side and in the water,
and having sort of a herbaceousborder is totally fine, but
sticking the odd, what we woulddeem weed into it and allow it
(11:47):
to grow yeah yeah, so, yeah, soas many as possible.
And then another thing with thereally small ponds, um, you
might find that that'll heat upquite quickly and be a totally
different type of habitat.
So if you want um it to be moreuniform, you might have to put
in a deeper area to keep thetemperature consistent and get
(12:09):
those nice convection currentsgoing in the water so that it
maintains sort of um astable-ish temperature, rather
than, if it's really shallow,it's fine, it's great for birds
and um a lot of sort oftransient insects that are
populating it in the summermonths, but it mightn't be good
for somebody else.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
So if you'd wanted both, say, you might create
quite a big dish area, marginalarea and then a deep area, like
anything is possible in natureyeah, and obviously like nature,
if you have, for example, youhave a little oak barrel that
you want to, if you're in areally small garden and you want
to create a little wildlifepond in that, as, as we've seen
(12:51):
on gardeners world several times, they've created these little
little ponds and so on.
But what we're saying here nowis that that'll be a totally
different habitat habitat towhat you will have if you create
a larger one with thesedifferent layers, with a stable
temperature and so on.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
So just an overwintering possibility, but
the barrel is great as well.
The only thing I'd ever sayabout barrels or any of them
just given in and out and intoand out of, because what I see
actually a lot in thecountryside are troughs with
drowned bumblebees in them.
I think a lot of creatures ifyou had a garden and bumblebees
in them.
I think a lot of creatures ifyou had a garden and there was
no water for miles around, whichis quite possible and you have
(13:30):
a barrel.
A lot of the time you'regetting you're visiting insects
just to drink and if they fallin they will drown.
So always have some sort of um,a textural thing doesn't have
to be a log, it could be a bitof fabric that's going in so
that they have purchased to beable to climb out should they
fall in okay, yeah yeah, sosomething like a little, a
(13:52):
little ladder effectively yeah,a little ramp yeah yeah, yeah
yeah
Speaker 1 (13:58):
and so let's say we're going up to a bigger size.
Now we're.
We know we can create awildlife pond in a small, in a
small barrel or such um, butit's going to be a limited, a
limited range of you know, ofcreatures that are going to come
in there just because of the ofthe nature of it.
So let's say we're creating theperfect wildlife pond in a
(14:19):
garden, yeah, and what would theminimum size that we would
start with?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Oh, I think on average two or three meters long
is.
Is is fine to attract.
I mean obviously the biggersort of, not not the bigger the
better.
But yeah, two, three meterswould be if you had a small
garden like that's.
That's quite adequate.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
That's quite big, in fact yeah um and achievable yeah
, so at three meters, then let'ssay we've three meters and it's
, you know, similarish width orwhatever, and we've, we've
created our, our layers and ourzones.
And I saw on on your instagramyou were creating a garden in in
bloom, I think was for fingal,was it?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
oh, I grew the plants I didn't make the garden, you
grew the plants yeah, and thatwas a suds garden, so that's
another really important topicactually, that now the county
councils are using um the suds,so the basically the using of
water from suburbia and urbanareas to recycle into the land
(15:27):
rather than it going into stormwater yeah, that's another.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
That's another area.
We'll chat about that in aminute.
Actually beforehand I hadn'tthought of that, but I was at a
brilliant conference in thespringtime there and it was all
about suds.
So we might, we might come backon that one in a second so yeah
, it's brilliant and there'ssome brilliant concepts there.
Might.
We might come back on that onein a second.
So, yeah, it's brilliant andthere's some brilliant concepts
there, but we'll come back tothat one in a second.
So, on the, on the, on theplants then, so you grew, you
(15:52):
grew them.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I didn't realize, yeah, so I'm growing my plants
for my customers and I'mdiversifying and trying to get
as many species as possible.
Um, even if they're tiny,little, minuscule little guys, I
think they're all important.
As we know, usually there is aninsect or some sort of a
creature involved specificallywith a plant and a lot of the
(16:13):
time we just don't know.
So, for instance, I use thewater dock, which you pretty
much never see.
I've never seen it in the wild.
I'm starting to put that intoponds Now.
It does just look like a dockleaf, a giant dock leaf.
I think it's gorgeous.
But we have an extinct insectcalled the large copper, which
is a gorgeous butterfly.
(16:34):
It's also extinct in the UK,but basically because we've
drained our lands and we'veruined the habitat that these
giant docks grow in.
And it's not that they can'tgrow the docks, they can, but
there's something so complexgoing on there that nobody knows
why the reintroductions didn'twork.
So I'm trying to um grow adiverse range of species that
(17:00):
and they look unusual as welllike there's another plant that
you probably know, the devil'switscabious, yeah, and the marsh
fertility butterfly is hisfavorite plant, and so, and
they're also beautiful.
So, as many of those plantsthat I can grow and put into the
ponds that I create.
(17:20):
They don't just look unusual,but they could be doing
something good that we don'teven know.
Or they could also be a plantstock and for wild habitats,
when, eventually, hopefully, wedo a bit more re-wetting and
there might be a bit moregenetic diversity, if the plants
are are in urban gardens andand on farm gardens, like
(17:44):
wouldn't it be amazing if we andI know we do have lots of farm
ponds, but farm ponds, I thinkuh will also be very important
for sort of the spreading, there-spreading of these species
that are in in decline yeah, andso the plants, the plants then
that we're going to put intothis pond.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Let's start in the in the deep, in the deep areas and
I know you're not going to talkabout water lilies and things
like that, so let's.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
I like water lilies.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I put in water lilies .
That's actually the only onethat's not native that I put in,
but I have the native theyellow lily, but I haven't the
yellow lily, but I haven't.
I've only had the guts to putthat into one pond because it it
can be invasive.
It has to be a big pond and youhave to tell people this is
(18:33):
native, this is massive, itcould kind of go a bit wild, and
so that's why you would need toput a management plan in place
to say, okay, you're gettingthis plant, it is native, this
is potentially what it could do.
The same with them, some of thereeds potentially they might
damage a liner.
So you sort of have to hash out, um, the pros and cons of
(18:56):
things and the plants that youuse, or, um, the area that
you're in and what you might beallowed to put in or not.
So so the deep water Idefinitely would be putting in
the lilies just because they'regorgeous and I'm not a total
purist, I'm still a gardener um,so, no, they are gorgeous.
(19:16):
And then, um, the I'm thebulrush.
Some people call it reed mace.
It's.
It would be sort of uh, deepish water and it's a bit.
Some people call it reed mace.
It would be sort of deep-ishwater and it's a bit of a.
I call it my migratory plant.
It always goes where it wantsto go, not where I put it.
So most pond plants willmigrate.
They just do what they want todo.
(19:37):
So you put them in, you keep aneye on them and they're putting
their tendrils down going.
Actually I like this level abit better, which is totally
fine, and then you might evenmove them to there or repot them
, and you shouldn't really haveto repot.
So if we're talking about smallponds, where plants are in
crates, they're not in theground, you should really get
(19:59):
three years if you've potted upnicely and you have a decent
specimen, if you've caught it upnicely and you have a decent
specimen.
Or what you can do sometimes isyou can get a secateurs and you
can cut away the edges thatgrow out.
So there's another plant that Iuse that's debatable whether
it's native or not.
It's called sweet galangal andit's in a lot of ponds.
(20:19):
It looks like a kind of carexsedge thing.
It's beautiful, flowing in thewind and it's amazing for water
quality.
So it would be quite deep aswell and it has these beautiful
fibrous roots that come out ofthe pot and they're absorbing
the nutrients.
So you can get away withpruning back to the pot for a
(20:40):
few years and then you wouldneed to lift and divide, and the
same would go for most of theplants.
The Marshmary Gold is a greatplant, so it would be a little
bit higher up, closer to themargin, and if you want to
propagate from it, you basicallydip the flower in the water and
leave it attached to the plantand it will grow new little
(21:02):
plantlets that you can cut offand plant.
Brilliant, yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
And then out into the outer zones.
What are we planting out there?
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Well, ironically, the outer zones are a funny one, so
aesthetically in nature, itwould be that the big rushes
would be your backdrop, but thatdoesn't really work.
So the calta would be one, or,sorry, the marsh marigold would
be one of them.
The spearworts I also have thislovely plant and it's a bit of
(21:33):
a tricky one called tubularwater dropwort, which is quite
rare in the wild, and it hasthese massive uh tubular stems
that sort of need support.
So if you manage in um, a lakeor a turlock in the wild, you'd
have all these plants growing inconjunction with each other and
(21:55):
they all support each other, abit like a wildflower meadow.
You need sort of the, thebamboos that we would use with
their other plants.
So this plant grows tall and buthe would be in the margins and
has lovely umbelifer uh flowersthat all the insects love.
So I would grow them a lot,kind of dot them all alongside
(22:17):
each other so that they propeach other up when they're in
the wind.
Because when you're walkingtowards a pond in a normal
garden you sort of don't wantyour view blocked but at the
same time you have to put yourplants where they're going to be
happiest, and the irises, ofcourse, are great in that area
too.
Um, I do use the, the purpleone, which isn't native, and
(22:42):
obviously the yellow flag, butyou want to keep an eye on the
yellow flag because he can be abruiser.
Um, yeah, so they're beautiful.
They're absolutely gorgeousflowers, yeah yeah, um, and then
the sedges and grasses, and I'mstarting to grow these tiny
little rushes.
Uh, so there's one um calledjointed rush and, uh, bulbous
(23:06):
rush, and they're only.
They're only teeny, tiny little.
Now, depending on the soil,obviously they'll grow bigger if
you give them more nutrients.
But again, these little thingsdotted around and water mosses
and some of the hornworts, Ijust really like to mix it up.
So usually people will blockplant, which is more impressive.
(23:27):
But having it evenlydistributed, the little and and
the big, they all help eachother and they all have kind of
a symbiotic relationship witheach other, and I'm assuming the
microbiome as well and thecreatures.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
So and in terms of time then.
So we we've, you know we've.
We've dug out our pond with thedifferent layers and we've done
our planting.
Now it's going to take time, asyou said, to build up this
symbiotic relationship and foreverything to come into balance.
Does it take?
I know you'll get, you'll getsome creatures coming in quite
quickly, but how long is itbefore it starts to function
(24:05):
fully?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
uh, I would say fairly quickly, depends on how
many plants you put in.
So if you're, if you don't putenough plants in, you'll always
be fighting an uphill battlewith your water quality.
So I nearly rather put in toomany plants and be taking them
out of its skin.
Now, just because the clientsaid put in whatever you want,
(24:33):
and I added the logs, and Iadded the different layers, the
different grades of pebble andsand and as many plants as
possible and sort of within theweek that it went in, I had
insects arriving and nowadaysare a very nicely rewilded site,
so they probably had loads tobegin with.
Yeah, um, but definitely withinone year.
(24:55):
You should see, um, stuffshould arrive like within.
If you put in water and you'vegot frogs in your garden,
they're going to be thereinstantly.
They're not going to ignore it,you know and what about?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
what about if you don't have frogs?
So, um, you might, you mightstart to pick up.
I have have in my head here thethought of doing quite a big
wildlife pond at some point inthe near future.
Years ago, when I was a child,around here, frogs and toads
were quite plentiful, and Ihaven't seen one in I don't know
(25:31):
how long I really don't knowhow long it is since I saw a
frog.
Very very, very luckily yeah, um, and there's probably a few
factors at play there, and mostof which are outside my control.
But yeah, I'm wondering if, I'mwondering if, if, if I do put
in, you know know, a bigwildlife pond, how likely am I
(25:53):
to get frogs?
I know I can introduce themfrom up the road.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I would say you might be surprised to be honest.
Like we don't see them.
A lot of people say to me it'sonly because I'm working with
them that I see them all thetime.
But there are plenty of peoplethat are out in nature that
don't see them.
They're designed to not be seenbecause you're technically a
predator.
So they might be there andyou're not seeing them, but, um,
no, I think that if you left itlike, obviously they spawn
(26:21):
around valentine's day, that'sthe amplexus, um, so I would
definitely wait and see what youget.
Now.
The other thing about buildinga very big pond is you're going
to attract birds and if youattract ducks, they have a great
time with the spawn and they'rereally specific and amazing
that they'll eat the yolk out ofthe jelly.
So you might come out one dayand you feel like you've got
(26:44):
acres of spawn and by the nextfew days it's just turned into
goo because you've had ducksarrive and they eat it.
And there's another reallyinteresting dynamic between
frogs and newts.
So I have some ponds that haveboth and some ponds that have
graduated from frogs to justnewts, and the reason that is is
because the frogs come earlierand lay.
(27:06):
As I said, it used to beValentine's Day.
Now, because of climate change.
It can vary from january, right, it can go on for two months,
okay, and so they arrive first.
But that doesn't mean that thenewts aren't there.
And the newts don't lay untilaround may and they lay an
individual egg wrapped in thefoliage of aquatic plants.
(27:28):
So what happens is is the frogsdo their business.
They go off about, uh, eating,getting fattening up after
laying, and the newts come inand they fatten themselves up
the same way the ducks do, andthey eat the yolks.
So sometimes in a small pondyou'll see this floating mass of
frogs born with no black dots,and that might be because you
have newts.
(27:48):
So sometimes they can get ridof that population of frogs by
preventing the theself-propagation of those frogs.
So it's a really interestingthing yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I don't think I'd be building something that big that
will attract ducks.
Um, that's yeah.
No, that that wouldn't be anissue like when I say big um not
acres no, not acres, no, on thebigger end of a garden, of a
garden wildlife pond.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
I think you'll be surprised.
And if you're not surprisedthen yeah, technically we're not
supposed to move them.
But I'm always saying to peopleyou know, there's plenty of
places that you can go to.
I've been called out to manyrescues where a pond is being
got rid of and in that caseobviously you're going to rescue
the wildlife and bring them tosomewhere else you know, and
(28:38):
then once they have a handle onit, you're, they're never
leaving you.
Um, and also I, I quite oftenrescue frog spawn from mountain.
You know the gullies thatquails have on either side of
the roads.
They quite often lay in themand then they dry out.
So rescuing that spawn fromdrying out is not a bad thing in
(28:58):
my opinion yeah, that's whereI've seen a lot now locally.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Is is in those gullies at the side of forestry
lanes.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah, yeah, exactly so you'd be doing a good thing
by yeah you're letting them beresidents in your new pond okay,
so, um, that's kind of thewildlife pond.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Is there anything we've missed there?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
for somebody that's looking to to create one um um,
I think that the habitat besidethe pond is important as well.
Um, so again with the stone andlogs are so important.
So, so, if you build a pond, ifyou want your frogs to stay
over the winter or have a safehidey place, piles of stones and
(29:39):
it doesn't have to be an uglypile of stone like somebody
dumped a barrel load of rocks inyour garden, but that's also
effective.
But, yeah, having layers ofstone with little gaps in it is
super important, like if you onso many maintenance projects or
I do a lot of refurbishments.
So somebody that's had a pondfor 30 years and it's suddenly
(30:01):
leaking and a loved one built itand I try and rebuild it nearly
exactly as they did.
They quite often have rubbleall around them and it's alive
with frogs and cool insects.
But there's a really cool umwoodlice that's pink and he's
specifically yeah, he's reallycool.
I was reading up on him theother day and he specifically
(30:23):
likes caves and weirdly they'refound more in um the protestant
churchyards than cath, becauseback in the day the Protestants
used a different type of mortar,apparently, which is more
attractive to this little guy.
It's on Wikipedia, you can lookit up, so you'll get all those
(30:44):
really cool things that, like it, might look like nothing to you
, but it's a home for somebody.
And again, the hedgehog housesum, oh, be, uh.
Bumblebee houses are reallyeasy to make, so within your
pile of rocks.
Or you can make it nicely likea dry stone wall with some
plants on it.
You can get an upturnedterracotta pot a bit of hose out
(31:09):
of where the drainage willusually be and prop it up on
some rocks and get a chickenwire ball.
Just make a little ball andstuff some dried grass into it
and have no I lie, sorry thehose to go underneath the main
opening and put a cap on the topand just put that into your
(31:29):
wall and if they use it, theyuse it, but if it's not there,
they can't use it and so thatthat's, that's for bumblebees,
bumblebees, terranian bumblebees, yeah, okay, just I know, I
know we spoke about this theother day a little bit, but, um,
we'll, we'll delve into itslightly, creating a proper
bumblebee house, and I know ourhabitat and I know you don't
(31:52):
like the word bumblebee hotel,as, as you will see, or b hotel.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Um, how, what's the proper, what's the proper way of
doing this, or what are the?
Key points, because I know someof them that you'll see the
fancy ones in.
You know that you can buythey're not functional at all.
They might look pretty and soon, but they're not functional.
So function wise.
What?
What are the key things?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I can't keep it simple, like there's another
thing you can do.
It sounds gross, but hoverflieslike to lay in kind of gooey
disgustingness, um, in kind offorest uh ponds where there's
decay, so you can just put abucket in a shady place, put
water in it sounds gross a bitof soil, leaves, logs, and then
(32:38):
top it up with um sort of leaflitter and they will lay in
there, um, so that's one habitat.
Let's say then the minor beeslike a sandy area, whether that
actually works or not, that youcan create that habitat that
they like, I don't know, butthere's no harm in leaving some
sand out.
The leaf cutting bees are supereasy.
(33:00):
Just get a log, drill someholes in.
It has to be placed in a southfacing area because they need
that heat.
Again, the bumblebee hut, likeall the separate.
And again the bumblebee hut,like all the separate.
I I just don't feel myself thatwith the hotels that everybody
is going to occupy it at thesame time, um, and they're
freestanding, I imagine becausethey're freestanding, they
(33:23):
probably get bombarded by theweather and winter and might,
like animals and insects, needcover.
Um, so leaving your leaves onthe ground as much, not cutting
things back until as late aspossible as you can leave it
because, as you know yourselffor instance, we were talking
about knapweed before within theheads of a lot of these flowers
(33:44):
are overwintering insects, andnot only are they overwintering,
but the birds know they'reoverwintering, so the birds are
going to come in and have theirprotein snack.
So, the more things I thinkthat you can leave and
undisturbed.
You're probably doing more thatway than you are by buying one
of these expensive houses that Ithink a lot of them have paint
(34:06):
on them like I don't know howthat can be good, but, yeah,
leaving.
Or again, like a log on theground If you turn over a log,
the cool ground beetles.
So the ground beetles arereally important as well.
All of the insects together,just stone wood, the leaf cutter
(34:28):
bees, believe it or not.
Um, roses, I think the bestbecause they have that again.
If I was in the bee mentality.
They have a lovely rigid feelto their leaves.
So if you have a rose gardenmaybe you should have a few logs
and a few holes in it if youdon't want, or if you, if you
don't mind holes, cutting yourleaves yeah, it makes sense and
we spoke about it before.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
ground beetles are brilliant for slugs, so for the
control of slugs, like so, yeah,all of these, all of these
things have have a function and,as you say, we don't, most of
the time we don't understandeverything that's happening
there, or even even, to behonest, a large part of it.
But if you, if you understandit's a bit like soil health you
you won't know everything that'sgoing on down there, but by
(35:11):
looking after the soil, byimproving the soil, you know
that there's good thingshappening, and I suppose that's
what the aim is.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
I've seen you.
As part of one of your ponds,you created a hedgehog house.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
That's right.
Yeah, that was in a beetle bank, so I love beetle banks because
I think beetles are amazing.
So don't forget that on yourexcavation.
You have all of this lovelysoil and you might, depending on
how deep your soil is, you'llhave different.
Um, the soil horizon could beinclude loads of really cool
(35:45):
soil, because I love soil aswell.
Why wouldn't you, if you're agardener?
And the hedgehog house in thebeetle bank I used unfortunately
, I used a lot of ash dieback,because I think what's happening
with the ash dieback is, yes,it's a crop that we can harvest
to burn, but then we'rereleasing the carbon.
(36:05):
Think about that in the longterm and try to use a lot of
these trees for good to lock inthe carbon.
I'm now building beaker bankslike a log wall either facing,
facing in sort of like a disc.
I did it for a very big pond ona research farm and then you
(36:26):
backfill with soil so you havethe opportunity there to create
all kinds of houses within thatbank.
So I created a long tunnel infor the hedgehog, because they
like a long entrance and theylike to kind of go up the way,
because if it's deeper than theoriginal soil level of what
you're constructing.
They could be.
It could get flooded or damp.
(36:47):
So you kind of build up a ramp,put a gravelly sort of a bottom
in it and then cap it and youcan either put grass in.
But to be honest, I think withmost animals they don't like
what we choose for them and Idon't blame them.
So if you are lucky enough toget a hedgehog, it'll do its own
bedding.
And now they do say that youcan't have hedgehogs and badgers
(37:11):
together.
I don't fully believe that,they say, and it is true that
badgers will predate hedgehogs,but I don't know anyone lucky
enough to have both of them intheir garden has to be sort of
(37:34):
safe enough that no baddies canget in there and take the young.
And I think I built a stoathouse as well.
Um, like there's so much.
We have the internet at ourfingertips.
It's when you're planning apond.
I would go do a deep dive onthe internet on all of the
different creatures that benefitfrom water and see what little
things that you can do to helpthose animals.
And because in yourconstruction phase you have that
(37:57):
opportunity to put in all theseextra little houses and use the
native plants surrounding againlike the easiest plant to grow
in disrupted soil would befoxgloves.
You just throw the seed in andaway it goes, and you know.
Then you can decide afterwards.
You don't have to have a grandplan either.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
You can just do it as it as it comes along yeah, yeah
for sure, um, it's there's,there's the world of, of, um, I
suppose way there's loads ofthings we could still talk about
on that.
And my head is ticking awayhere.
I'm trying to, I'm evenpicturing that as you were
talking there.
I'm picturing where I'm puttingit and uh, yeah, cool kind of
(38:38):
have.
I have the idea already, andwhen you were mentioning it,
it's it'll be at the bottom of aslope and that slope is
actually a really shaley bankalready.
So I think the yeah, the logwall, that's another really
important topic is your soil.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
So, um, digging wise, that can be there, because of
course there's different thingsthat you can use.
I haven't had the privilege yetof using bentonite, um, but
according to your soil, youmight be lucky enough to be able
to dig a decent hole and it bea natural pond, in which case it
has totally differentmanagement.
But if you're using liners andso the shady stuff, the sandy
(39:15):
stuff, it can be really trickyto maintain the structure, but
you have to be so carefulbecause it just falls away,
whereas if you've got reallydeep clay, uh, solid, like rock
solid stuff, it's nearly likecutting concrete, you know yeah,
yeah um I should have where I'mputting it, I should have both.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
So down, down down, the bottom part is going to be
there'll be a little bit oftopsoil and then it'll be a
subsoil which around here,because this is an old coal
miling area, you have quitemarley stuff now.
It's not going to be goodenough to hold water completely,
um, but it certainly will beeasy enough to shape once you
get down a little bit.
But then it's because it'sagain an old coal miling area
(39:57):
there's these kind of littlebanks of shale around the fields
and one of those banks is wherewhere this will go, and it is
literally like shale.
But I won't be, I won't bedigging there.
It'll be down down slightlyfurther.
I'll be digging for that.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
So yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, it sounds very similar tothat pond that I was saying to
you, that I did about a year ago.
They're the same, so they havethis lovely marl at the bottom.
It's a delight to dig andbecause it just it's like you're
sculpting you know it justcomes away perfectly, whereas
the sandy stuff, oh, they'rerocks poking out, and in that
(40:30):
case, if you do have soil likethat, you want to take extra
precautions on how to protectyour liner.
Now, the ddpm liners areamazing, as you know.
You probably, in thosesituations, would want to do
sand underlay liner and as youget bigger, you might want to
use a geotextile on top.
Um, but um, yeah, it soundslike you'll have.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Uh, it's fun to do as well to make your shapes yeah,
should we just why did you saygeotherm?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
so your sand geoliner , yeah yeah, so on this very big
pond, um, I did.
The geotextile is this verythick black geotextile and what
it allows you to do is to putrocks in on top.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, now I get it yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Yeah, and basically it's like and it also wicks.
So if you've got a massive areawith a liner and the surface
area of the pond is quite bigand you get a hot day.
You've got a lot of evaporationday, you've got a lot of
evaporation.
So to prevent the liner frombeing damaged by a water drop
that isn't being filled, thegeotextile on top will have
capillary action out to thesides, which will marry into the
(41:38):
.
It just makes it a little bitmore.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yeah, yeah, no, makes sense now.
I was wondering why that wasfor a second.
Yeah, yeah, only in big pondsare you that that big pond that
we're talking about on theresearch farm you allowed?
Talk about that, or I don'tknow so okay, we park it, it's a
it's a very big one, though,isn't?
it yeah yeah, okay, so we won'tsay anything about that one.
And then in uh, we, we mentionedit briefly earlier on in
(42:02):
relation to suds and just sopeople are aware, with a lot of
home gardeners won't be aware ofwhat it is.
Obviously a lot of our landscapearchitects and garden designers
are very much aware of it nowand it's it's a way of
essentially in layman's terms,it's a way of slowing down water
(42:23):
exiting your site or beingcaptured on your site.
Essentially, and trying totrying to slow it down initially
is the big thing and thentrying to do something with that
water that is slowed down.
So, for example, if you have 10down pipes off your house and
your outbuildings and whereverthey go, that they're not just
(42:43):
being rushed off the site, thatthey go through a sort of a
catchment area and that itbreaks the flow so that they're
not just flowing off downsomewhere else, and and they're
trying to do that on a biggerscale, especially in urban areas
, to slow down the exit of wateryeah, essentially it's a great
idea and all the councils havetaken it on board and I think
(43:04):
they have to actually yeah andand it makes huge sense because
we have so many problems withcertain cities and towns with
floodwaters on rivers becauseessentially, we've canalised a
lot of waterways to suitourselves and we've eliminated
the floodplains and all of thehard surfaces within urban areas
, it's all just going tostormwater, going to stone water
(43:32):
or storm water.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
so I try to encourage people to do, if they're
changing their driveway, simplethings like please get gravel
instead of, you know, tarmac orconcrete, and because it's a
slower percolation, it's notjust going straight out onto the
road.
Or again, you can, youabsolutely can use your downpipe
to fill your pond and havemaybe a percolation area around
the pond, because don't forgetthat if your pond is filling
(43:55):
from your roof, that you willalso need an overflow in your
garden and that will need to beplanted accordingly, and.
But it's a great idea and I hopeit kind of gets a bit more
promoted in the public eye,because there's so many
individuals that could just makea different decision.
That would help with it.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Yeah, and again, like this can be done in home
gardens as well.
Examples of that were at thisconference in the springtime.
There were some brilliantexamples and I forget it was
from some town council in the UKsamples and I forget it was
from some town council in the UK, but essentially where they
taught people how to capturewater into some form of a tank,
(44:38):
basically at the bottom of theirdownpipe, and they slowed it
firstly by the water was comingdown chains, which obviously
looked good, sounded good.
When it got there, there was awhole load of of of different
layers, like you were talkingabout your layers in your pond,
so there was three or fourdifferent depths within this
tank.
Essentially, now, it was abeautiful tank.
(44:58):
It wasn't just a um, you know,water tank.
It was.
It was painted up and it lookedreally good.
It was planted and then theyhad different layers in it and
then at the end you had youroverflow.
So the water exited then as itwould, but in the meantime it
had been slowed down.
It was feeding an ecosystemwhich had lots of different
(45:18):
plants, lots of differentinsects and, yeah, it was just
slowing the water down and therewas a habitat there as well
yeah and it was.
It was beautiful and they weretrying to replicate this.
It was done on some of the someof the town buildings and they
did demos on it and then peoplewere able to take that away on a
smaller scale and do it intheir homes.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
So it was, yeah, it was really good yeah, I think in
some of the big town plans nowdon't they have um designs for
wetlands within the city to doexactly that on a bigger scale.
So they, I think they even havetanks in the ground and they
would have a wetland systemwhere then, of course, the water
is filtered.
So by the time it gets to thestreams and the rivers it's not
(46:01):
full of all the stuff that wehave in in our atmosphere that's
poisonous to all those aquaticanimals and plants so yes, it's
really positive thing yeah, tellus a little bit about your
business, so obviously yourday-to-day.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
You mentioned that you're calling to, uh, these
little old ladies that havetheir problems, but yeah,
they're great yeah yeah, um, soyou have all these, you have all
these ponds.
So you're you're doing main,you're doing maintenance in sort
of older established ponds,revamps in some creation of new
(46:34):
ones.
So just tell us about your kindof day-to-day, week-to-week day
.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Well, yeah, so it's exactly that.
So generally what I try to doin the winter months I'm doing
maintenance, and because I havea cut off ish time before
Valentine's Day and so manypeople ring me in January going
can you get to my pond?
What about the frogs?
Because everybody knows that ifthey tell me that there's an
animal endangered, I'll be theretomorrow.
And so I try to do themaintenance stuff over the
(47:00):
winter months and because it'sconstruction is is difficult
enough in Ireland, uh, in theground uh, let alone being in
December or January, and andthen sort of from spring on I
would be doing construction ongreenfields and reconstruction,
and I'm growing my own plantsfor those ponds as much as I can
(47:21):
, and so that is is part of itas well, and then going forward,
I would also maintain thoseponds and then lots of times I
would then build herbaceousslash wildflower beside that.
So I do garden design as well,but not kind of conventional
stuff Like there'd have to be afew weeds in there.
(47:44):
And I have one client she won'tmind me saying she comes out
every time and I built her a bigwaterfall for her and there's
this one persistent dandelionand she comes out and she's like
actually I'm watching you, nowyou have to take it out, I'm not
leaving until you take it out.
So that kind of thing.
And um, and people I think overthe years get a bit more
(48:07):
embrace of of allowing things togrow.
So that same lady, I did um abee garden for her and this year
, now, to be fair, tree wastaken down so probably has more
light.
Um, but I tried to to do what I, what I said to you earlier
please don't cut back anythinguntil as late as you can like
(48:28):
the end of January, february, ifyou really have to and and
allow some of the weeds to growand do an annual weed maybe, or
twice weed, but, um, I just findthat the plants grow amazingly
together.
And also another thing that Iwould try and encourage all of
my pond and garden people to dois never leave the soil naked
(48:50):
ever.
Um, because, uh, nature hatesthat, nature hate the void, and
so I'd be doing that as well.
So I have, I'll do maintenance,garden maintenance, well,
adjacent pond garden maintenancefor my clients as well, um, but
just those ones.
So I wouldn't be, I wouldn't bedoing normal like grass cutting
(49:11):
or that kind of thing.
So, um, yeah, and then, andthen with those clients, if I
put in a new pond, I would saythat usually they don't need to
see me back for maybe threeyears, unless something goes
drastically wrong.
Um, another thing I'm startingto do now is with green water
problems.
I'm introducing daphnia insteadof any kind of like.
(49:34):
I'm really anti all chemicalsand I've had to fight a lot of
people for years.
But so there's, I'm sure youknow, about blanket wheat.
Everybody hates blanket wheatand duckweed.
So with blanket wheat is aninteresting.
So many people are tempted touse chemicals and, to be fair,
they do work, just in thatperiod.
(49:54):
But if you imagine you've got abody of water and you have this
blanket weed that you hate, thereason that it's there is
because there's nutrients togrow.
It's meant to be there.
So if you remove it and youconsistently remove it and you
grow more plants, eventuallyyou'll deplete the nutrient
stock in the water and it won'thave somewhere to go.
However, if you kill it, whathappens is it rots, it goes to
(50:19):
the bottom and the cycle iscontinuing.
So you will forever have tokill it with that chemical.
So, even though it's a long sortof frame to finally eliminating
it or keeping it on amanageable level, you do have to
put in the hard graft to removeit and the best times to remove
it.
So it starts to really flourishin May and it has this really
(50:43):
annoying phase where when youtouch it, it breaks apart and
goes everywhere.
It's really frustrating, and soyou have to wait for it to be a
bigger, thicker plant, where itrises to the top and it kind of
goes a limey green with bubblesin it, and then you can easily
stand in and wrap your handsaround it like big clumps and
(51:05):
it's fantastic in the compostheap.
So use nature to your advantage.
Don't fight anything, unlessit's a non-native thing.
It's a non-native, off with itshead.
But if it's a native, um, it'spart of a cycle and it's not
your fault or anybody's fault.
It's just.
It's just something that youhave to think your way around
(51:27):
and manage it accordingly.
That's my, my opinion anyway.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Yeah, it's a very clever way of looking at it
because, as you say, if thatblanket weed gets at you, that
decomposes on the bottom of thepond and away your cycle goes
again.
So you don't solve the problem.
You're constantly in atreatment phase, as opposed to a
slightly more, as you said, aslightly slower approach, but a
(51:51):
more balanced approach thatgives, that gives you this full
balance in time exactly andremember that it's doing a job
for you yeah, yeah, it's therefor a reason like plant the
weeds, not the enemy.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
It's actually taking nutrients out.
Then you take those nutrientsout, you put them in your
compost heap and youredistribute nutrients every you
know somewhere else.
Like it's photosynthesis, it'sa veiling of something that's
there.
So fighting it isn't workingwith it.
I think working with nature allthe time proves better.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
So where can?
So that's, that's your kind ofday to day stuff creating,
maintaining, building habitatsand the plants and the plants to
to go with your ponds in ingardens, and where can people
find you?
Where's the best place to getin contact with you or email?
Speaker 2 (52:40):
address.
I only have social me.
I only have instagram.
At the moment I do mean tobuild a website but, like with
everything, I'm a bit more, moresort of outside most of the
time rather than inside.
So, yeah, I bit the bullet andI did the social media thing.
I think it was last year andjust because I knew that I'm me
(53:00):
knowing me that's all over theplace the whole time that the
likelihood that I was going tosit down at a computer and do it
was low.
So the social media has justbeen an easy out, and I know
that not everybody is on socialmedia, um, so, uh, I do sort of
word of mouth as well, like Imainly work in Dublin, wicklow
(53:23):
and Galway, um, but I mean I cango further afield.
But I think, and I do advisoryon for people if they want to
build their own with their owncrew, so I can do a plan and a
design with the different plantsand elements and creatures that
(53:43):
you want to attract, doing kindof hybrid swim pond, uh,
wildlife ponds now as well, withthat design in mind that it's a
little bit more naturalistic.
And I wouldn't be I don't havemy digger driving tickets just
yet, so, um, don't know if I'dhave time for that as well I
(54:06):
noticed the just yet bit.
Yeah, I do, like diggers andtractors.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
We have covered an episode on natural swimming
pools, as it happens, and it wasan unusual episode for the
podcast, it wasn't a typical one, but it was hugely popular
actually, and continues to be,hugely popular oh.
Speaker 2 (54:26):
I think they're great .
Speaker 1 (54:29):
Yeah, brilliant, it was something that was in my
head for this pond and then Ididn't realize you just have to
sort of spark and something elsein my mind now that they could
be combined from my wildlifelovely stories to do with these
ponds.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
So it was a lady who bought her father's house.
Her father was incredible, sohe was in the orchid society,
built his own pond like thegarden.
He's just one of theseincredible people who did
everything.
And this old koi pond,completely dilapidated, full of
rushes I think it was builtmaybe 30, 40 years ago Plants
(55:08):
from the burn when you'reallowed to do that, maybe.
And um, when I finally hadreconstructed the insight to
allow for wildlife because a koipond is built quite differently
to wildlife ponds because theyneed so much depth, and I was
looking at it going, god, areyou sure you don't want to make
this into a swim pond?
She's like, no, actually youcan't make it into a swim pond,
(55:30):
but it wasn't that big and itabsolutely you could have.
You could have sat on that withyour glass of wine, no problem.
And so you don't have to bemassive, like you don't actually
have to be able to do lengthsin them okay, so just a dip yeah
, a little dip upon how bigwould it need to be?
that one was only was it threeor four meters long.
(55:53):
Now, to be fair, it was a meterand a half deep, I think,
because it was a koi pond, sotechnically you could sit on the
edge of that and be pretty muchsubmerged and you could tread
water if you tried really hard.
But it was perfect for it.
In fact, when I put it up Ithink I think I have it on my
social media somebody didcomment that looks like a small
swimming pool because it wasjust for it.
In fact, when I put it up Ithink I think I have it on my
social media somebody didcomment that looks like a small
(56:13):
swimming pool because it wasjust the shape of it.
It had been built so hard-sidedfor the koi and I then adapted
it for the wildlife.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
But you could absolutely sit in that if, if
you were so inclined, I would soI'll uh, I'll put the link to
your instagram in the show notes, but people can find you it's
pond girl ashley on on instagramand uh, yeah, if, if anyone is
not on instagram, just send mean email and I'll get ashley's
(56:44):
permission to pass on her emailaddress to you as well.
If, if, if you're inquiringabout any ponds, so typically
you're working in the WicklowDublin area and in the Galway
area yeah brilliant it's been.
Actually, it's been a reallyinteresting chat.
Um, my head is ticking awayhere in the background.
It's, uh, there's there's lotsthat I want to do with water in
(57:04):
the garden.
So, as I say, frogs used to seeloads of them, don't anymore.
That's, that's something thatI'd like to see back around the
place.
So, um, yeah I, I have, I haveplans anyway.
So you're after answering agood few of my of my questions
on those things and, yeah, thankyou very, very much for coming
on.
Master, my garden podcast thankyou.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
It's been lovely to talk to you and hopefully
there's loads of more inspiredpeople that are going to go out
and make lovely habitats for allour lovely creatures.
Speaker 1 (57:35):
Yeah for sure.
So that's been this week'sepisode.
A huge thanks, ashley, forcoming on.
Really interesting.
Jess, yeah, I knew beforehandthat this conversation would go
in a good few different ways,and it did.
And I forgot about suds, andthat's really really important
as well.
But the creation of a wildlifepond in your garden is hugely
beneficial.
We've spoke about it on thepodcast on numerous occasions
before and, as Ashley mentioned,that can be anything from a
(57:59):
small little barrel right up toa fully fledged wildlife pond,
just bearing in mind you knowthe, the principles and the
ideas that that Ashley mentionedcreating these different zones
that are suitable for all thesedifferent creatures that will
come.
So, as the saying goes, youbuild it and they'll come, but
if you follow the principlesthat you mentioned, you're
(58:19):
pretty sure of success with it.
And, yeah, loads of greatinformation there.
If anyone has any questions orwants to get in touch with
Ashley around any projects orupcoming projects and you're not
on on social media just send mea message and I'll get in touch
with Ashley.
And that's been this week'sepisode.
Thanks for listening and untilthe next time, happy gardening,
thank you.
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