New plants for the pond

The new pond in Charlton Down Nature Area was built in the footprint of the old one after much strenuous activity by Kate Taylor and her team from Elements Aquatics in the week beginning 12 February 2024. Samples of the plants from the old pond were saved to restock the new one. These included water starwort, water mint, bogbean, duckweed, and white lily. There remained an urgent need to add more more oxygenating plants in the deeper water, and to add shallow and marginal aquatic species to provide good habitats for the pond creatures.

Our first session saw plants purchased by the Parish Council placed in the pond on 25 April 2024. No photos were taken on that day as Carol Matthews, Linda Goacher, and others were all too busy. 15 weighted bunches of water crowfoot were easy to place in the deeper water of the main pond area as oxygenators by the simple expedient of just throwing them in. Weighted aquatic pots of marsh marigold, water forget-me-not, purple loosestrife, slender tufted sedge, lesser spearwort, penny royal and hemp agrimony were positioned in the shallows around the pond and the smaller boggy area as best we could. We used heavy aquatic compost to create the right shallow water substrate for the marginals in the bog area but realised that we need a great deal more of this special compost to create optimum conditions for other plants as well, and we will have also have to buy more aquatic baskets.

The second event took place this week on 21 May 2024 when we received an unexpected donation of mature specimens of yellow flag iris, white water lilies, rushes and more. These had been surplus to requirements when a large pond was being cleared out and tidied up elsewhere in the county. Carol and Graham went to pick up two large dump bags full of plants which needed to be put in water as soon as possible.

We are learning on the job. The conditions in our new pond are not always ideal for the types of plant we want to grow. We are working out how to create optimal planting conditions and would welcome help and advice on how to care for our wildlife pond from anyone who is willing to offer it. We discovered, for example, that the water lily roots which seemed so heavy out of water actually floated to the surface as soon as we put them in the pond. Carol Matthews (our local Parish Councillor who is not afraid to get hands-on when it comes to the Nature Area) donned chest-waders and carefully got into the pond to weigh the lily roots down to the bottom with heavy stones. Fellow Parish Councillor Sue Fraser and others also lent Carol a hand with the fetching and carrying. We will need to modify the way the plants have been temporarily positioned to encourage them to thrive. In the meantime we hope that they will happily survive with their roots in water until we can do so.

A reminder of how far we have come with the revival of the pond this year:

From this in January:

To this in May