Creating A Water Tank Pond with Carnivorous Rock Gardens | Homegrown Garden

Hey, welcome back to my allotment garden. I'm Katrina and today we're going to convert this galvanized steel water tank into a bit of a pond slash bog garden project. Now I already have a very small Belfast sink wildlife pond at the top of my plot, which I did years and years ago, but you don't really see it much throughout the year because the overgrowth of the plants tend to but the newts do love that pond and also the birds as a source of water for them. But this one's going to be a bit more for me, a bit more decorative. It's going to be a chance to try out a new habitat for creatures as well as a bit of a relaxing sort of water feature for myself. I've got some really interesting pond plants that I'm going to put in here that I can't wait to tell you more about, especially the carnivorous plant, the saracenia, which I'm going to plant into a rock and then put the rock in the pond. So that's quite a fun one. So yes, do look at the bottom chapters if you need to for future reference. So now that I've dug this out from the border over there where it was a little bit abandoned because I'd left it over the wintertime and it just filled up with water, it's blocked the hole. So it's just a bit of a composty mess inside. So first things first, I'm going to take this over to the tap and give it a good rinse through and then see where we stand from there. So I made sure that hole at the bottom of the tank was nice and clear and then gave it a good wash through and a brush down with some water and making sure to get rid of all that mud and debris. On the underside of the tank there is this pipe, which is the drainage hole that I was just cleaning out, which unfortunately does poke out quite a bit. So if I want it to sit level on the ground, that's going to cause a little bit of an issue and ideally I'd rather have that off. So I'm going to have a little go with this little handsaw. I don't feel like it's going to be big or strong enough. I feel like that's more of a sort of, I don't know, metal person's workshop job, but I'll give it a go. I did it and I couldn't quite believe I actually managed it. Now to seal up that hole I used this Aquamate pond safe aquarium filter that is approved for use with fish, so you don't have to worry about any chemicals. To begin with I did actually use the nozzle that it comes with, but because this hole is quite wide it was actually much easier just to sort of squeeze it directly into that hole. I cleaned it up with a plant label just to get a nice smooth finish on that and it took a little while to set so I left it actually overnight. The following day I actually came back with my fiance and we wrestled with this pond liner for a little while and I'm the sort of person that gets quite stressed out by cling film, so pond liner is not my friend. And he helped me level out the ground so that the pond would sit nice and flat because I don't want a wonky water level and so after we got these bricks down, that's actually a great way as well to make sure that the pond doesn't get too cold in the winter by raising it off the ground level. So we put the pond liner in and used the water to sort of help bring it down a little bit, but I soon realised that the pond liner method wasn't for me, so I used that same silicone to attach the liner to the tank without realising that actually that silicone isn't a sort of sticky one, it's good for filling holes and making things waterproof, but it didn't actually stick this liner to the tank as I realised when I came back the next day and I was done with faffing with all of these layers and crinkles when actually I just wanted a nice smooth finish and the reason I'm actually applying this is because, I forgot to mention, I'd heard about these galvanised tanks leaching metals into the water, particularly zinc, so it's actually quite important to create a barrier between that metal so that it's not going to leach nasties into the water which could then, you know, upset the wildlife in the pond. So I actually scrapped this idea of the pond liner, you know, and I had to clean it all up because this silicone just wasn't the right product for the job, it was just too messy to work with, so I actually found out that you can use this polyurethane pond seal and this is a sealant that you apply and what it does is basically creates a plastic layer on top of, in my case, metal to make it waterproof, watertight and it was just the thing. Now this is quite a tricky thing to apply because you have to put three layers, very thin layers of it before it all, you have to give time between each layer basically and it has to be sort of semi-tacky but because it was quite a hot day it took a lot less time than I thought so I put the first layer on, waited about 20-30 minutes and then applied the second and then the third. Basically you can't let it fully dry in between those layers otherwise you won't get a proper seal. So this took a while to apply and then obviously I had to let it set for three days, three days because it's a resin and, you know, you can't let water mix with that so you have to really get a good seal. Whilst that was drying I wanted to get the water ready and luckily I've still got some water left in my water butt behind the shed which I was going to transfer into this empty water butt but the water had a lot of debris in it, a lot of leaves and things that I didn't want in my pond so I devised this method of actually using some really fine netting used for my crops, put it over that barrel to stop and catch any of that debris from going into the water and it actually worked really really well and I also put in some pond weed and my aerator as well which releases some bubbles into the water, gets it nice and clean. I'll go into more detail on that a little bit later and then I covered it up to keep the sunshine out, stop the algae growth and left that for a few days until it was ready. So now I want to talk briefly about the bog garden aspect of the pond because it's not going to be a bog pond, it's not going to be entirely filled with mud, it will be mostly water-based but the reason I'm calling it a park bog garden is because I want to keep in it a carnivorous plant that would naturally grow in a boggy area and I love my carnivorous plants, I think they're such fascinating plants to learn about, you know it's a crazy thing of evolution that they've evolved to eat bugs as getting their nutrients because there's naturally no nutrients in boggy land. So I've had a pitcher plant in the past before and I've bought one, a new one, with a set project in mind that has been hugely inspired by Sarasenia North West and these guys have got a fantastic YouTube channel and plant nursery that obviously it's in America so I haven't been to but if you are interested in carnivorous plants do go check out their channel. As I say this project's been inspired by what they've done and I've directly taken inspiration from them. So this is my Judith Hindle pitcher plant that I bought at BBC Gardeners World Live with this project set in mind but I also recently bought a sundew, one of the sticky trap ones which I've also got here and both of which don't want to be submerged below water so they're not really a pond plant because they like to be damp but not completely soaked because that could rot the crown. So what the guys at Sarasenia plants have done over the years is make a rock garden. So what you do is you get your hands on a very porous rock, they quite often use pumice stone, I've picked up this which is a lava rock, this is a red lava rock, I think you can also get it in black. It's very very porous, got lots and lots of holes in it so this is going to act like a giant sponge. So my thinking is I'm going to hollow it out, make a big hole in the middle, fill it with my plant and then not submerge it but just rest it on the level of the water line so that this stays damp but not completely soaked and submerged and it keeps the carnivorous plants really happy so that's what I have planned for that one. I've already drilled out one of them and did run a bit of a test because I submerged it as I wanted it in the pond just to see if it would stay wet and it did actually dry out quite a bit when I just hollowed it. So what I did end up doing was drilling the hole all the way through just to a small bit to allow the water to go up through the rock where it stays nice and boggy and damp so that's all compost in there. I'm going to plant my pitcher plant in here and the sundew may take a little bit more work because I have yet to hollow out the second rock but we may add that at a later stage, we'll have to see. But you really got to check out the rocks that Sarasenia Northwest do because once they've finished planting it they'll put sphagnum moss along the top of the surface and then that gently spreads and grows over the rock to completely cover it and then over the years when the pitcher plants and the sundews self-seed everywhere those start to grow on the rock and really sort of naturalise it into its own little mini ecosystem so I can't wait to have that as the centre feature of my little pond project. So for this project we're going to need some safety goggles, some water, a dust mask and also a drill and I'm here using this type of drill bit, I'm not actually sure what it's called, a spade drill bit. I've got two sizes here, I tend to start with the smaller size and then go up to the bigger size. First I'm going to wet the rock and this is really important because it helps prevent dust, it helps prevent the drill bit from getting too hot and it actually makes it much softer and easier to drill I've found. So keep dampening it if it ever dries out and just keep a firm grip on the rock and drill straight down, it's actually a lot softer than I first thought it was going to be and it didn't actually take too long with a bit of perseverance. You know, do wear gloves, I forgot to right at the beginning there because it's quite a hazardous task but you know just keep wetting out and eventually you'll create quite a good little bowl shape quite quickly and for this I also wanted to drill a small hole through the bottom so that sort of wicking system can, you know, it can suck water out of the pond and up through the plant as I found it did dry out if I just left it like this. So I just kept channeling it out a little further until I was happy with the shape. This is the sundew that I'm going to plant in one of my rock projects and the plant that I bought was actually quite big so what I wanted to do was take a few little sections off it, there's so many little babies in this one pot, you know, I could make quite a few of these rock projects if I had the time. So I just carefully teased away a few of the little plants to make a nice little clump in my rock. This is probably growing in a peat-based media which is what carnivorous plants do prefer, it's a bit of a controversial use but most plants that you buy are unfortunately grown in peat but that's a discussion for another day. So I'm just sort of teasing it around and poking it into that planting hole and I did actually make a separate little pocket on the front of this rock for this smaller version that's got some lovely moths growing on it which will hopefully grow all over the top and surface of the rock and create a nice sort of green effect. So just a case of carefully poking it into that little hole that we made. And there we have it! Hey so it's been a couple of days now since I lined the inside of the pond which means it's finally time to fill it with water and some plants which is the most exciting bit and I can't wait. So I thought quickly I'd run you through the plants that I'm adding first so you get to know what I'm planting. So here we are, most of these you might already be familiar with. I bought them at the Gardeners World live show from Lincolnshire Pond Plants so you may have already seen them crop up but I'll run through them again in case you haven't seen them. So this first one here is called an arrowhead plant or Sagittaria sagittifolia and it says very attractive with arrow-shaped leaves producing white flowers born on three angled stems in whorls of three with a purple blotch at the base of each petal. Height one meter, bread one meter, depth 0 to 15 centimeters and it flowers from June to September. So I love this because it's going to add a lot of height and I just love that arrow-shaped leaf. Obviously it's going to spread quite wide but I'm going to keep that managed with obviously the limited space that I have in my pond. Plant number two is actually this water clover. I've actually lost the label so I'm going to have to look back on my records to find out what it's called but it's going to be great at oxygenating the water and you know these lovely beautiful shaped leaves popping out of the surface. That's just going to be a great one. I get the feeling the fish are going to like to swim all around and close up to this when I get them. Then I've got this one which is a relative to the mare's tail that plagues a lot of people's plots and it is a very vigorous grower. So it's going to very quickly outgrow this pot that I did actually plant it up into but I love the sort of black little streaks on the stems. It's really unusual nice and grassy so it adds a bit of a different texture. This little water lettuce is great for oxygenating the pond again and with all those lovely roots. You can't forget your pond weed. Every pond needs a bit of this to help oxygenate it. There's quite a bit going into my pond. It doesn't look that interesting but you know the life that live inside the pond love it and it's very beneficial to add all of that oxygen to the water and help keep it clear. Lastly I've got this pond lily. I can't remember the name I've lost the label so I have to put it down there but it is a dwarf variety so it'll only spread to about 30 centimetres. It's got a lovely sort of purple marbling on the leaves and the flower on this one will be yellow and quite small so it's perfect for a smaller pond. We've then also got my carnivorous plants. So this one is a sundew and this here is my judith hindle pitcher plant both of which don't want to be submerged so the rock will go into the water and stay about that level to keep the crown of the plant above water and that's something that's really important with pond plants is you need to look at their planting depth because because they all like to be at a certain depth within a pond so some of them like to be quite deep such as your pond lilies traditionally but some of them more of a marginal which means they only really want to be about 15 centimetres below the surface of the water which is what many of mine are so I'm going to have to bear that in mind when I put them in the tank and I'm going to raise them up using bricks and shelving that kind of thing. So that's the plants now it's time to get the tank ready. For the base of the pond I actually put some potting grits into the bottom and this is going to create a nice sort of base for the wildlife it's going to be something that good bacteria can grow on it's going to give all the wildlife something to crawl into and I also added a few broken pots and pebbles just to sort of naturalise the base a little bit and create some cute little features you know if I was a little fish or a little dragonfly larvae like what would I like to live in and so I created this little underwater habitat that I'm never going to see because I won't be able to see it but yeah so then I added the water from that bucket that I saved the other day and it's all actually quite clear you know you can see there it's not too green there's not much algae in it but pouring this into the tank where all those stones were that I did wash it did release a bit of dirt so you know the water doesn't come out crystal clear in the end but then it was a case of building up layers so that I can put my plants in and this took quite a lot of time and faffing with with different levels to try and get it the right height basically and obviously I filled the water tank as I sort of went to make sure that I wasn't planting them too deep or too high and it just took a lot of tweaking and my tips would be you know don't use plastic pots to raise them because they float and they're not very stable but if you can use things like terracotta pots or bricks or just some bits of slab you know so you can gradually increase the height to the right point I then went over to my wildlife pond which is really really tiny even smaller than this tank it's an old Belfast ceramic sink which I just sunk into the ground many years ago gets loads of noobs it's very popular and what I'm doing here is collecting some of the water from this because it's going to be full of life bacteria and good happy little critters like this little water snail and that is actually going to help keep the algae down as well and just get things off to a really good start it's taken a little while to get the plants into the right position but I think I'm there I might end up tweaking it in the next couple of days but for now all that's left to do is to add the aerator which will help clear up the water everything's going to settle over the next few days anyway so it will clear up a lot in just a few days time but this will really help to oxygenate the water before I hopefully get some fish in the next week or so I want to make sure the water is nice and settled and clear before they come so I'm just going to pop that in now and see how it looks with a bit of bubble at the side of the tank right here you can see I've got some holes and that's the same in about three of the four corners so that's where I'm going to put the pipe for this aerator the end comes off quite easily so then I pop it back on feed it through and get some bubbles along this side and what that also does is my overflow in case we get some heavy rain then the excess water can flow on the outside and I might actually have to put some gauze or mesh there just to stop any animals from escaping there it is bubbling away I've still got room for a little bit more water so the aerator is in the bottom corner of the tank which leads to this pipe which is where the air pumps it through if I follow that let's see where it leads it leads to this which is my waterproofing tub for the time being and inside this is the pump which is not actually weatherproof I think it said it was no it was weatherproof but not water resistant and I took that to mean that it doesn't want to get wet so I put it in here and when I put it in its proper position because I've been moving it about recently I'll put an upturned bucket over the top to prevent any water from even getting into these little cracks here and then that cable goes to the solar panel which is a good you know two or three meters away from the actual pump so it's great that you can position it really far away from the pond to get optimal light and so I've actually put it on top of the shed for now it's not secured or anything this is all quite rushed but I can also put it on top of the fence panel over here which is just above the pond and I'll probably do that because I don't think it really needs too much in the way of aeration to be honest I've got enough plants in there that I think it should be okay and so that's how it's looking after it's just been planted so we've got the sunji there in the corner lots of lovely texture my log in case anything gets stuck and can climb out and that's also going to be really beneficial for the dragonfly larvae that like something to perch on a bit of wood and to lay their eggs on it and then we've got the little water lettuce and the pond lily well that should come up a little bit more over the next few days yeah really pleased so far give it a few days see if that water clears and check back in real soon hey so it's been a couple of days now since I've filled the pond with water and it's all settled I've got the plants I think in their final positions so I thought I'd bring you back and show you how the pond looks now in its final placement I think for now and hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll be getting some fish but yeah let's go take a look and see how it's doing so here it is and the filter is still bubbling away quite nicely I have kept the solar panel in full sun for most of the day and it's been really sunny so it's not stopped bubbling I don't think but yes we've got the arrowhead there in the back corner my saracenia judith hindle in the lava rock that seems to be doing really well staying nice and damp which is just how it loves to be we've also got lots of new pictures coming up on this look all of these are new growth and this is going to turn spectacular colour in the autumn time especially all these new ones look they've just opened up they've got the little bits of wood there just for insects and bugs and anything to crawl out that might need to and also for dragonflies that lay their lava I believe on damp wood and then we've got this beautiful little sundew with its sticky little traps I'm not sure if it's going to focus in there but it catches lots and lots of flies don't worry it doesn't really go for bees or anything like that and in the centre the pond the water lilies actually come up see when I put that in the tank it was a bit further down and they weren't on the surface yet so it's great to see that they've come up and also I replanted this a little bit deeper the water water clover that's it which apparently is technically a fern which I found really interesting because it releases spores and then the little water lettuce which will float around we've got lots of duckweed that's going to help cover the surface and look really pretty so yeah there we have it I'm really really quite pleased I have noticed that the solar pump does need to be in full sun to work so if it is in a part shaded spot it may actually kind of bubble a little bit and then stop and then bubble and stop so just bear that in mind I've just moved this it's actually mahonia it's a mahonia soft caress and it's got really fine split leaves that aren't spiky like it's relative but yeah still need to do some work around the you know the outsides of the pond area but I'm not going to have any steps or anything because this is not really a wildlife pond I already have one of those that sunk into the ground my belfast sink pond this is a bit more for me and yeah I'm really really enjoying it guys so yeah that's it I'm so so pleased with it do let me know what you think in the comments but just over the last couple of nights I've been putting up my my new chair or a reclining chair and coming here after work sitting down and just the sound of the bubbles and watching them move across the surface you'll find it really really relaxing so I'm just really looking forward to having this as a permanent feature in my seating area so in terms of the maintenance what will I be doing well I've kind of built this pond in a bit of a difficult time really because we're currently going through a heat wave and a drought we don't have a hose pipe ban here in Nottingham yet I was lucky I managed to use water but water for this but you know I do need to keep it topped up with water and if I have to use it from a tap I will be letting it sit for a few days before I put it in here but otherwise in a normal situation we'd have plenty of rain even in the summer months so that shouldn't usually be an issue obviously going into autumn I'll be making sure any leaves that fall from that tree above don't fall in and yeah just keeping an eye on it really I don't think it should need too much in the way of maintenance and I'm hoping it's not going to get too much algae because I've positioned it in an area where it gets sun for only part of the day it probably gets direct sun or part sun until maybe about 11 12 o'clock midday so and then it so that should help keep the algae down and in terms of mosquitoes well as I say I'm hoping to get some really tiny little fish that should be quite happy in this kind of tank in the next couple of weeks so more on that as it happens watch this space but yeah thanks for joining me I know a lot of you've been waiting for this video so do let me know what you think in the comments if you've got any questions by the way please do drop them down in the comments below and I'll get back to you as soon as I can I'll also put links down below in the description for anything that I purchased so you know where I got it from so do check that out and I'll leave you now with nice footage of my pond project