Steps to the pond

Toad decided to dig a pond in the summer of 2008. Toadlet (7) helped by leaning artistically on whichever tool he wasn't using. The chickens investigated.

Then the pond triangle, at the lowest part of the garden, was left to go wild. Toad is not really a gardener so upkeep didn't cross his mind before he dug the pond. I was too busy struggling to get the rest of the garden, which measures about 90x30 metres, and which had been neglected for about twenty-five years, under some sort of control. Then my energy ran out and I've had to pace myself. And Toad still isn't a gardener 😁. If I leave him a polite note, giving him plenty of notice to get used to the idea in advance, he will mow a section of lawn on a sunny day like today. Given the bogginess and the slope of the land that's a hard job so it helps a lot, leaving me time and energy to hack my way into the pond triangle in what I hope will be a sustainable way.

I made the mistake at first of cutting the many old and monstrous rhododendrons down. I now realise that it's probably better to cut them up, that is to raise their canopies and prevent any side branches from bridging and rooting, which is what Rhododendron ponticum likes to do.

So now I am cutting between the rhododendrons that were planted long ago for a hedge and am going to let them increase in height but not in width.  Another of the pluses of this approach is that I can see the pond from the inside the house.

Making a footpath and sight path to the pond

Today, at the steepest part above the pond, I made a step. I'm dead chuffed with it; never made a step before. I found a suitable piece of wood next to the washing machine (as you do if you're me and have a cluttered old wash-house full of things that might be useful one day, and things that are already useful, I hasten to add!) and walloped some very dead branches of rhododendron wood into the ground to hold a stone and the wood in place. I think I'll make another step down from that too because in wet weather it can be very slippery down there and there's no point increasing the rate of erosion if one can avoid it. There's another similar piece of wood in the shed. As I hack back the overgrown bushes I'm making woodpiles. There will be bonfires in due course.



All these piles are now bigger than they were when I took these photos and there are two more green ones.

Below are two pond watchers a year or so after it was dug.

 Meanwhile, on another garden step, one of those going up to the shed, this year's first Boggy Brae violet is flowering. Wild cherry trees are beginning to flower too.

Wild cherry blossom