REPAIRING THE POND FINALLY

Finally the weather improved enough for Paul to start repairing the pond. He decided that it would all need to be completely dismantled and rebuilt.

So we also decided to get a better pond liner as well.

The seven fish survived their reduced water level winter and have grown quite well , so we managed to catch them all and put them in a large tub to wait out the refit.

On our last pond , which was fine and had not issues, we'd overlapped the ends and used wooden dowels to hold the sides together.

So we could not cut these down and over lap them or the pond would shrink to much and more of the concrete base it sits on would show. But this time instead of relying on just the brackets inside, Paul's glued and dowelled all the corners and timber together and glued each timber to the one above.

Then he has also added some long metal bolts into the ends joining the wood at the corners. More metal plates inside and these have been well screwed in this time. So it hopefully won't be moved apart if the rain fills it with too much water. Oh and we also added an overflow , which we had left off last time.

The new liner is now in place and the pond filled. The fish are back in, wondering why the water's so deep and clear no doubt!

Just needs the liner cutting back and the top wooden edge re attached and then it's job done.

SOME GARDEN COLOUR

 

 Now the box garden is no longer around, the pots of tulips that used to stand between the box hedges needed a new home, so we spread then around the garden.

There is still lots of work to be done around the garden even without the general tidying up.

At least the lemon tree and it's lemons have survived the cold winter.

more tulips

These pots of tulips are still flowering well after several years.

AT LAST IT'S APRIL!

 So hopefully the weather will finally start to warm up and allow us out into the garden for more than half an hour at a time!

March this year was unusually wet, lots of heavy rain showers especially in the last couple of weeks but the weather was also cold. But it's been much brighter in the last few days so hopefully we've turned the corner and won't get quite so much rain!

The Magnolia's are finally starting to flower.

and the tulips in the pots are starting to flower too.

So loads to be getting on with now the weather is finally starting to warm up