wildflower meadow

Why are wild flower seeds so expensive. I know you can purchase mixed varieties of  so called wild flower seeds, but they tend to have one plant which tends to take over after a year or two.

pondlife to nature blog

It's now half way thru February & we've had virtually no proper winter here in the north east as yet, apart from a few days of frost & some hail this morning.i know this is called pondlife & as i no longer have a pond there is some info here which may be helpful to someone, & if anyone has a question concerning ponds, either building one, maintaining one, filtation or whatever, just email me , or post  below & i'll get back to you with pleasure. I shall therefore post about nature & the wildlife we have round where i live on this blog

Video of 5 foxes enjoying evening sun

The video of the foxes can be found on my youtube channel. Click on youtube logo on the pond video below, then click "5 videos" next to Rico1052, you will see the foxes video. 

The family of five foxes haven't been seen for a while, but we've heard  one an odd time over the last few months, and one  has been seen on our patio in the last few weeks, so they are still around.  I set a camera up, but it only turrns up when the camera isn't on, watch this space , i'll get it yet.

After the pond

As you can see from the photo, all has changed, the pond has been filled in, and a nice turfed lawn is now settling well in.
The process of draining & filling the pond in was hard work, but slowly bit by bit i got there. Being 66 years of age and having a dodgy back, one has to be aware of ones limits, but doing a few hours at a time & planning it out works wonders.
I did think i would have required loads of top soil, but as it happened i only needed 8 bags. I ordered the turf on the net & have been very pleased with it, the quality & delivery was excellent, but as the weather has been particularly dry recently, you must keep it watered well.
As you can see in the photo above it's looking good.
A few days after draining the pond i was still finding frogs in the greenery, but as we have a nature reserve with a pond on our doorstep, i was able to rehome them.
If anyone has any questions please don't hesitate to contact me, i would love to help.

pond equipment for sale

Well the pond has finally been filled in, hence i have 2 biological filters, one uv filter, 2 pond pumps, & the small custom biult shed that housed them all. It was a lovely setup, which kept my pond in absolute tip top condition.
If anyone is interested please email me on daveclarke25@hotmail.com all pipe work is included as well, & i only want £50.00 for the lot. The small eco filter cost that alone.

Filtration setup

I built the little shed for the filters out of pallets, in fact the base was a pallet. The basic design consists of 2 pumps in mid pond. One feeds the larger tank which is a black systern cold water tank, so i could cut my own inlets & otlets exactly where i wanted them. That filter consists of 3 layers of foam.(course to fine grade), with plastic modules in the lower half, then straight out to pond. This filter is kept on all winter, but in the summer i had this on a timer so it was off at night, making less noise.
The other pump feeds a uv filter in the side of the "shed", & then up into a top sprinkler fed smaller filter with foam & plastc modules ,& then 2 paralel outlets back to the pond.
Originally i had the small filter with the uv but the water went green. What was happening was that the uv was doing it's job of clogging the stuff together but the pump couldn't cope with dragging it up to the filter, but as soon as i added the other pump & filter it was clear as a bell in days.
So if you have a small filter & a uv & your pond is not clear,---
1---fill a plastic clear pop bottle with your pond water, 2 ---if the muck settles to the bottom of the bottle, your uv is working ok, you just need something else to drag it out as i did.
Any queries on anyting please don't hesitate to email me.