will dig big hole.
Having drawn some interesting but perhaps not shareable conclusions about our domestic soil profile, we added the preformed liner donated by the in-laws (also pestered by said small children. Someone give them something to do - four of the six weeks of summer holidays have been survived but we're getting desperate.)
In a very clever way (mainly because we looked it up on the internet first) we made the hole about 2" deeper than the pond to allow for a layer of sand at the bottom. This was a blessing - the base of the Big Hole was like a particularly stony brand of concrete (see reference to soil profile above) so there was no way we were going to get this baby level without introducing some leeway.
Half-filled to stabilise it and it's looking good - the water is even lining up with those ledge things quite nicely so I guess that means The Bloke can use a spirit level after all. Actually he did most of this, but since he had his shirt off at the time I'm reserving the evidence for my eyes only. We did line up a lot of wheelbarrows (very small ones for the little people) and move dirt. And I got down in the hole with my girlie border spade and shovelled out the bottom bits (to much praise over my digging technique from mud-phobic husband: you see there was a reason for all that gardening, after all).
There's a clue to what we did next in the last picture. This was the technical bit so I withdrew to a safe distance and watched admiringly. Of which more later.
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3 comments:
So how big was the hole and indeed the pre-formed pond liner? I have a feeling I shall be nagged to do something similar in coming summers so I'm just doing my homework...
Tell me - how \are you going to stop them going for a swim in it once it's done?
LGF - it was around 4ft x 2ft (and 2ft deep). The pond liner is a bit less volume-wise as it has those shelf things but basically it's 2ft deep at the deepest point. Actually it didn't take that long so don't get too daunted!
And VP - my dear kiddies are so big now they could just about sit in the bottom one at a time and would still have their shoulders above water :D swimming is entirely out of the question. I'm more worried about how those poor fishies are going to manage when they're being enthusiastically caught every five minutes...
it's such a relief to put in a pond without doing my head in with worry. When the children were small (I think up to age 5 was the cut-off point) I'd never have dreamed of putting this in without a sturdy grid over the top - in fact I don't think I'd have put it in, full stop. But now we're water features a go-go - the Villa d'Este will have nothing on us by the time I'm finished! :D
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