MAKING a WILDLIFE POND in a Stream

Well hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Wild You Garden and in this video we have the sound of running water and I assure you down there somewhere is a stream and my task for this video is to make this part of the stream into a wildlife pond, believe it or not, and kind of a holding pool so that we can plant some more wildflowers around the margins and establish this as a bit more of a wildlife friendly environment. Not that there won't be wildlife in and around here already I'm sure but we can make it a lot better than it already is. So the plan is the stream comes in somewhere up there from some previous works that I've been carrying out on this property here in Surrey, so check out the video I've already made on clearing what was a really clogged up part of the stream and it wasn't working, it wasn't going over the ward fall as it intended, so yeah really nice video I've already made on that one so check that out. But in this video we're downstream and we are looking to use this fantastic natural water source that is spring fed from a spring a bit further up on this part of the landscape that we're in where it's a little bit undulating, it's a lovely part of the Surrey Hills area of outstanding natural beauty, gorgeous part of the world, very very forested, a lot of wooded areas and yeah it's a really nice place to be but as I say this is something that the client has been wanting to sort out for a while and when I came to look at this I could see more water than I can now so obviously the Falls Watercress is really taking a hold here and we've got some pendulous sedge because this is only a shallow water body it's easy for plants to establish and to kind of swamp the existing water so we're going to look to hopefully make it a bit deeper as well and to kind of barricade up it narrows up here so maybe make a little bit of a stone blockade so that we can get a bit more water depth in here as well so there's less chance of it building up with vegetation in time so lots to do we've got to clear out all of this first to see the water from the vegetation shall we say before we can make an assessment and see how we can move forward so stick around and watch how I turn this what seems I've driven Bob into a river but there he is in all his glory in the middle of a stream so it's great you can really see the difference already now we've managed to get a big chunk of this vegetation removed the island that was in the middle Craig is just leaning into one of the rhododendron bushes which is overhanging the stream quite a lot it's got pretty big and the client's quite keen to try and open up this area as much as we can so we've got another raft of vegetation to take out here we've got some of the overhanging branches to take off the rhododendrons and now you can see if I go down this rather precarious bank which I'm going to come and grade in a moment if you look through there we can see the waterfall which is lovely such a brilliant feature cracking sound and that's feeding all of this area so still got a lot to clear up yet and then obviously we want to try and raise the area so that we've got more water being held in here so we've got a few stones we're going to add down here you can see where it's sort of partially dammed already we want to try to add to that to raise the water level up to have a bit more of a still pond in here or very slow moving pond shall we say so yeah quite a bit to do yet and then I've got to get out and somehow tidy these banks with the digger make it look presentable so hopefully we can get a few more wildflowers planted along the margins to make this a really nice place for wildlife well we can now finally see the lovely mini waterfall and what a wonderful sound that is obviously we could hear it before we just couldn't see it so we've been clearing back some of these rhododendrons which were a little on the large side still are some of them more like trees so I didn't want to take out all the cover and all the vegetation for any frogs and amphibians that might be around here just seen a crayfish in the river as well which might have been a white clawed crayfish which is our native crayfish and there are also minnows in here as well thickleback which is really nice to see so yeah they're still around they're still milling around in this pool and we've now made more of a pool area you can see so it's already starting to look a lot better so what we have to do now two jobs left yet still got to tidy up all the bank down this side and then over my shoulder down there where the dam is in essence we have to try and sort of repair that build it up a little bit so just like to have a little bit more water in this water body itself so yes getting there and really nice to be able to see that lovely feature now so a little bit more to do while the rain comes down well now we've got all the banks regraded to a better gradient absolutely full of rubbish this bank don't know what it was before but it's full of breeze blocks concrete bricks rubble you name it it's in there so and some of it is staying in there because it's going to make the bank collapse if we take it take much more out so we've got the waterfall flowing nicely now we've got the banks regraded and all the rubbish taken out and we are now just looking to use some of these boulders that we've found to read down this end of the stream we're just opening the floodgates for a minute just to try and wash the worst of the duckweed and things out and then we can start to rebuild using as i say some of these stones to try and just keep some of the water in here so yes a little bit more to do and then we can let this thing top up overnight and then see how it did take a few hours and obviously i've come back the second day or the next day now to just have a see how we're going we're carrying on with some other works and there is another wildlife pond that we're currently in the middle of making inside the meadow that i made two years ago so check out that video on the channel but yes this is a really nice water body now you can see it's really steady across the back there's hardly any movement so it'll be a really nice breeding ground for frogs and all sorts of wildlife as well so it's going to be really really good for shrimps and anything else that manages to find its way downstream to this part of the river slash stream there's a little bit of duckweed building up just because and you can see where the outflow is there where we have been clearing upstream it's still clearing on the other project that i spoke about um it's still clearing at the top there it's nearly pushed through the duckweed now but uh yeah so a little bit is coming through but that'll just kind of work its way through in time and there's a little bit of management this should say nice and gin clear so another lovely little project all i've got left to do is put some wildflower seed on the areas where we've had a bit of an impact with the obviously a two-ton digger and a one and a half ton dumper on some very spongy ground it's going to make a few ruts but i've leveled all those back out now we're back to square one and i've re-profiled the bank so that's looking really nice now i've just got to put some seed on there as i say and this will no doubt in time soon green up there's already plenty of vegetation around that side and the water levels have built back up since we put the dam back in and raised the level a little bit using some of the rubble on site so yes really playing its part now and creating a backlog of water which is exactly what we wanted and to think that just yesterday this was a mass of vegetation and an island you couldn't even see that side of the bank hardly and it was just soil and vegetation it's a really nice transformation so as always guys hope you've enjoyed the video by all means if you're looking to create your wildlife a wildlife pond in your own garden or you need any plants oxygenators lilies anything like that do check out the wildgergarden.com online shop where we do stock a whole host of pond liners fleece everything you could ever make to want to build one of these fantastic habitats for wildlife you don't need a stream in your back garden and of course we sell all the products online as well in terms of wildflower seed bird boxes bird food just check it out we can ship to you if you're in the uk so yes i really hope you've enjoyed the video guys i hope it's given you some ideas if you've got some existing streams or water bodies in your own garden or on your own land obviously if you are looking to have anything like this done then please do get in touch via enquiries at wildgergarden.com obviously i do travel nationwide and further afield it seems these days to undertake works like this so i'm happy to look at consultations and obviously carrying out works if they involve large water bodies or the creation of new ponds just get in touch guys happy to help always happy to create new habitats for wildlife so thank you so much for watching guys feel free to subscribe to the channel if you haven't already give the video a like if you've enjoyed it and i'll be sure to bring you many more habitat creation projects like this in videos to come along with lots of other ways in which you can help wildlife in your own garden thanks for watching i'll see you soon