Pond restrained
Palisades at the side of the pond
The last couple of years, we’ve had problems during heavy rain that our pond overflows into the neighbour’s garden downhill from us. Obviously they weren’t terribly pleased to have their large wooden shed occasionally under water, and as the side of the pond is held back by wooden palisades which have been in place since the house was built about 20 years ago, we were quite worried that they might be rotting and that one day our pond might end up completely in their garden.
In the photo above you can see the pipe we connected to a heavy-duty pump to keep the pond under control when it rained a lot – it looks as if we’re pumping into the neighbour’s garden; which we are, but the pipe goes straight into an underground stream and doesn’t flood their garden.
So this spring we had the wooden palisades replaced with concrete ones and, where the pond isn’t being restrained, but earth needs to held back, with concrete rings stacked and filled with earth:
The replacements in brown concrete
At the same time, we had an extra large overflow pipe put into the side of the pond, which takes excess water into a shaft connected to the underground stream, and had a leak in the pond fixed.
The pond nearly refilled after the work was completed
So far it looks as if the work has been successful – the pond is filling nicely, and the neighbour is happy.
Nonetheless, I think next time we move, we’ll be looking for a house without a pond or running water in or under the garden – there always seems to be something that needs taking care of when you have water around! And a word of advice – don’t use wooden posts to separate different levels in the garden – all the houses here are on a hill and they all had their gardens landscaped with wooden palisades. Guess what: in the last few years they have all rotted and had to be replaced, despite having been impregnated before they were set.
Now we just have to replant the border – we had the extremely prickly (Feuerdorn) hedge along the border removed at the same time. It used to need cutting back at least twice a year, and that was always a painful job!