If you look around the web at advice on making wildlife ponds you might think something like this was ideal, with different water depths and ‘shallow’ shelves for planting. Although it looks quite neat and tidy, ponds like this are too steep-sided and too deep to create the best wildlife habitat. The shape always reminds me of one of those giant open-cast mines.
Most people giving advice on how deep to dig a wildlife pond make their ponds too deep. I heard someone on the telly the other day say the depth they were aiming for was up to a child’s waist.
So I measured Katy’s 7 year old waist – 70 cm from the ground. Roughly twice as deep as the deepest area of my pond, twice as deep as it needs to be.
Ponds like this won’t be lifeless, especially if you are scrupulous about clean water. Practically any shape of hole in the ground will be a good wildlife habitat if you can keep the pollutants out. But natural ponds this size are rarely so deep or steep sided.
Digging down deep also makes it impossible to create the very gently shelving shallows where most wildlife lives.
A better shape which overcomes these problems is shown in the photo sequence for my new pond. Though we’re still learning: I expect people will improve on my designs.
