1,000,000 Litre pond update - Summer 2015 - Pondguru

Okay, it's early July. I think it's about time for another pond update. So here we go. Before I even get to the pond, I just want to show you this bush. This is crawling with bees and it's a hebe and it's flowering at the moment. It's a beautiful plant, nice and compact and it gives year-round greenery. Now in front of it, we've got something that most people would consider a weed. This is Rose Bay Willow Herb. But I've got these growing in specific places in my garden. And they're growing... For one particular creature and that is the elephant hawk moth. Every year they lay eggs on some of the rose bay willow herbs that I've got around the place and they produce massive caterpillars like that. So that's why I leave that particular weed. Can't for the life of me remember what these things are called but the leaves are like an umbrella. It's the sort of thing you'd expect to see a gnome sheltering under when he's fishing by your pond. I've got a few good clumps of these and they provide great colour and great cover. The colour is green, but I like the colour green. Unfortunately, we've missed the tree heathers flowering. They get loads of little clusters of white flowers on and the smell from them was absolutely divine. It was like sweet honey. You could only smell it when you got two, three metres away from the plant, but on a hot summer's night, it was absolutely beautiful. Really sickly sweet honey sort of a smell. I love these things. All my bamboos are doing quite well and the willow here has come away from nothing to being about five or six feet tall already so I cut that down every single year and it comes away again. Creates lovely straight growth and I use that for various projects around the garden including a willow shelter and if you're interested in seeing Seeing how to build a willow shelter, click the link in the video description. The vegetation all the way around the side of the pond has gone absolutely berserk. Most of it is five or six feet tall and it provides excellent cover for the fish and a little bit of protection from the heron as well. Now the last time I did an update video, I actually had a fence all the way around here and that's taken down now, it's gone, and it really opens it up. I suppose it does make it a little bit more vulnerable to the heron because now it can just walk right up to the edges. But so far, Fingers crossed it hasn't been here. Here we've got one of the irises. This is Iris pseudacorus, also known as yellow flag. Lovely yellow flowers which really stand out against the greenery around the pond. And this one's another iris. This is American water iris. Now this one's a plant that I don't really want in the garden. This is St John's wort, but it gets quite nice yellow flowers. It gets nice big blackberries on in the back end of the year. And it's pretty good cover for all the little birds and everything and mice and everything else that lives in the garden. So I tend to leave it. Every couple of years I'll take it right down to the roots but it will come away again. And it self-seeds all over the place as well. Here we've got some pendulous sedge. See why it's called pendulous sedge? Because these are just literally like pendulums swinging in the breeze. They're not quite ready yet but if I give them a rub you can see all the seeds dropping off. They're a nice plant, evergreen, and they do get these lovely big seed heads on in the summer. I didn't notice this plant when I did the update last time. This is either a blackcurrant or a redcurrant. All the berries on there haven't got any colour yet, so I don't know whether they're black or red. That's a bit floppy, hanging over the path, so I think I'm going to tie it up. To this little remaining bit of fence. This is a nice plant. This grows in hedgerows and in bogs all around the UK. Okay. Hasn't flowered yet, but it gets lovely white flowers. Thank And it creates a lovely sickly sweet smell. Normally in August up here. I imagine it'll be a little bit sooner down south. But that is meadow sweet. Sweet. Filament. Ooh. Not filipendula. Filipendula ulmaria is its Latin name. And here we've got what looks like dock leaves you. but they're actually from a plant called bistort and that's a little bit past its best but that is a lovely pink flower. It's almost orchid like the way it comes up. See all the seeds dropping off there now. And that actually smells of rotten meat because it's pollinated by flies. Here we've got some lovely tall water mint. There you go, have a smell of that. Lovely. Hasn't flowered yet, but it gets like dark purple burrs round here. Little balls of flowers, little clusters all the way around the stem. It's a lovely plant. Look at me Gunnera. They're doing well. I think in the last update video they were only about this high. They weren't very big at all. But here they're getting much bigger. And these lads can actually get up to about eight feet tall. They tend not to do that here for some reason. Maybe they're just not mature enough. But they can get about eight feet tall. There was a duck nearly landed on the pond there, but it saw me and flew off. Now, what was I saying? These can get about eight to ten feet tall. Eight is most common, and that is a bloody big plant. Eight feet tall, and these leaves can be absolutely massive. You can literally shelter two or three people under one leaf when these things are mature. Gigantic. See how thick this is? It must be at the bottom nearly two inches thick. And on top of that, it's got a massive leaf. And these are the seed heads. Huge. It's a really beautiful plant, the Gunnera. Here we've got a lovely field maple. It's actually grown from this side of the path, but it's draped right over the path, creating like a natural arch. It gives a really nice effect. Another species of bamboo. I forget what type that is, I'm not very good with bamboos. And in here we've got two of the real giants of the pond world. We've got the Gunnera, which is spreading across this bankside, and behind me here we've got skunk cabbage. Look at the size of those leaves. I think in the last update video I actually showed you the flowers, about this big, big yellow flowers, and this smell of fox pittle, not a very nice smell. Now across this bank side I've started tipping grass clippings, and these are going to nourish all these really big leafy plants. And I'm hoping it's also going to be good for grass snakes as well. We live right at the northern edge of the grass snake territory and I personally have never seen one but there is the occasional one found in the Derwent Valley. So I'm hoping by creating a good habitat for them if they ever do pass by they may just stay. Now this plant here is a mountain ash and it hangs out over the pond and quite often we'll get the kingfisher just sitting on these little branches diving in and eating all the little fish. There we've got a lovely big hosta and you'll notice it hasn't been touched at all by any slugs. So many frogs and toads around but don't get bothered by slugs. There's another hosta down where the water comes in from the spring and if I just pan along the side of this pond you'll be able to see different things. In there we've got variegated sweetrush, variegated yellow iris, ordinary yellow iris, American water iris and some more yellow iris at the bottom. We've got a forest up the top end of this pond, but here we've got some gigantic horsetails. These are actually the biggest ones you can get in the UK. They can get to about five or six feet tall, but this wide, they look really prehistoric. And I've got those spreading quite nicely along the side of my pond. I love them, absolutely love them. I'll give you a close-up of what they look like, because they look really, really prehistoric. There you go, you can see a little new one coming up right in the middle of the frame there. Those ones there are probably about three feet tall, so they've got quite a lot of growing to do yet, but they're a lovely little plant. Here we've got a mighty tall yellow bamboo. It's doing really well, and it's growing in some absolutely horrible ground. It's like hard-baked clay here, which isn't what it wants to be in, but it's doing very well. I'm thinking when I cut the grass, I'm going to start tipping some clippings around these bamboos as well, just to try and nourish the soil, get them growing a little bit more healthily. Aha! It took me a while to remember what this one's called, and you'll find out that I was kind of stumbling over that in the outtakes at the end, but this one is called Purple Loose Strife. Gets huge clusters of big purple flowers. up here almost like a little bit like a foxglove but the flowers are on a much smaller scale and it puts them out all over here it's a lovely plant and it doesn't half attract the butterflies it also attracts the moths as well because we've got a hell of a lot of moths around here consequently we've got a hell of a lot of bats as well but that's a lovely plant and i've got loads of these around the garden Hopefully when I do the next update, these will be flowering, because it should be towards the end of summer. Again, in the south, yours are probably flowering already, but I'm in the frozen north, and it takes a little bit longer for our plants to get going. Here we've got some humongous, well, they're not called bulrushes, most people would know them as bulrushes. It's Typha latifolia, which is also known as Cattail, or Reed Mace. And this particular one... Has got to be a good seven and a half feet tall, which is about 2.2, 2.3 meters. No, that's not right. 2.2, 2.3 meters or thereabouts. That's massive. And there you get those distinctive big brown poker-like seed heads on. Now unfortunately there's none of these seed heads to show you, although there might be some from the Typha angustifolia, which is a smaller skinny one. So if I can find any of those down there I'll let you have a look but they might be all blown up because I tend to use them for target practice. Now along this bank side here it was starting to fall in onto the path so I planted loads of willow just cut bits off about this long shoved them all in. Some have grown some haven't but where they have grown they've done really well. So in the back end of the year, once these get to like six to eight feet tall, I'm going to cut them down again and put them in all the places that haven't done very well. Once they get going, I can then weave them all together and make a really strong living structure to retain the bank side and stop it from ever falling down onto the path. Hey, there we go. We've got some seed heads from the skunk cabbage there. You just see them there. There's another one here. Hopefully, they'll mature, and when they do mature, I think I might plant them elsewhere in the garden. There's some of those poker things from the typha. These ones are typha angustifolia, which is like a long, skinny version of the big lad, but that gives you some idea of what they're like. One thing I have noticed when I've been over this side of the pond is that on the other side, there's some beautiful shuttlecock ferns. Look at them. They are probably about four feet tall, roughly 1.2 metres. They're absolutely lovely I would love those all the way around the side but unfortunately they're only in one little clump there. So as far as the actual clarity of the pond goes has it got any clearer? Don't think so. It's still mucky but there is still carp in here and I've actually put some more carp in as well. I shouldn't have done. It's clay lined, they dig in the bottom. Between them and the crayfish they dig in the bottom, stir it up. So until both of those types of things are out It's always going to be this colour but the fish love it. They're still totally healthy, the colours on them are great and they feed really well. Now quite a major thing that's happened since the last update is the boathouse has got a waterproof top on. I had loads of liner spare from when I shut the shop so there's lumps of liner over here to make it totally waterproof and this is where you access for the boat. The boat's still full of manky water, I haven't cleaned that out, but I'm going to drag that down onto the lawn and give it a good jet washing off. And once it's placed back under here, it should stay bone dry. Awesome. I'm not sure how well this is going to pick up, but I've got an absolute nation of small rud in this pond. You should be able to see that. I've chucked a bit of food in for them, and there's literally thousands upon thousands of small rud in here. Hell of a population. Yeah, that was probably one of the trout. And there's one of the terrapins, there's plenty of them fellas, big scabby goldfish. God, that was a monster, must have been nearly a foot long that. There's another one sunning itself on a big log that I dragged into the pond. Now over there, there's a big red carp underneath that floating weed somewhere. It's just making the weed move, and it never seems to come to the top, and really, to be honest, I can't remember putting that fella in. There it is, and that'll probably be the best part of two feet long. That's a bit of a monster. Here's just a quick overview of the pond. We've removed the fence from here all the way around to that platform there so there's no fence around this bottom end and it looks a lot better without the fence. See how much all the greenery's really come away on the sides of the pond. It's grown absolutely hellish. Really filled it in. There's the boathouse from above with its waterproof roof. That got done a few weeks ago. Hell of a job. That's actually rubber pond liner. So there's probably about 300 quids worth of liner on there but unfortunately when I shut the shop I had to buy the stock from myself so that was left over. So it's made a lovely roof, should keep the boat nice and dry. There's all sorts of fish coming up there there's goldfish, sarasa comet, koi, golden orfe, rud, all sorts of fish. Just a quick update on the acers, they're all in full leaf now, I've got one here got a field maple there, a nice big acer here A few more in here. They're getting really overgrown by that St John's wort though unfortunately. There's a huge palmatum dissectum in here. Really need this stuff clearing out a little bit. There's another little lad there. Quite bonny, oh god, what's it called? Aquilegia flower in here. Blue and white flowers. A big Acer behind there. Humongous contorted hazel. Lovely purple Acer. And this is my wildflower bit. It's gone a bit mad though. And to be honest the flowers haven't done too well so I think this is going to be its last year. It's going to get cut down and reverted back to lawn. And that's another acer there. Now there wasn't many fish shown yesterday when I filmed the majority of this video. So I've waited until the next day. It's a little bit sunnier. I'm going to chuck some food in and see what comes up. Hopefully you'll see more fish now. Ah, there's something I didn't manage to get yesterday. One of the water hen chicks being fed by the adult. It's a nice big golden orfe down there. There's a hell of a lot of them in here, but I'm not sure where they're at. The problem is there's so much natural food in here that most of the fish just don't come to the top. The prawn's looking pretty good, but it needs a cut. Magic! Well, I hope you've enjoyed this latest update. It's been a lovely warm day here. I haven't seen the sun, but temperatures are spot on. The garden's really responding. Everything's looking good. Thanks very much for watching. I shall catch you in the next video. And just a reminder, if you're watching this before the 20th of July 2015, you might want to check out the giveaway video, because that is aquatic related. There'll be another one after that, so watch out for that. But up to the 20th of July, aquatic giveaway, get yourself entered because of some cracking prizes. Thanks for watching.