I pass Al-Mahroos, one of the better garden hardware shops on the island, almost every day and I notice a huge banner stuck at the front of their showroom declaring “huge discounts” but I never had the gumption to stop and investigate. After 3 years of collecting tools, I though I had everything I needed to garden, which I do.
But just for the heck of it and as it was the holidays, I thought I’d stop and go in to have a look on Tuesday morning. Browsing around the tool-filled shelves, I noticed that they had pre-formed pond liners which were approximately the same shape as my pond, although much deeper. The deepest part was about 35 cms which was more than 20cms deeper than the water feature I had. The price was very enticing, the sticker said BD24! I thought these things would cost an awful lot more, especially being German made and guaranteed for 10 years. I decided to get one. But as my luck would have it, the salesman told me that the promotion ended on Dec 13th and its price reverted back to BD40.
Damn!
I tried something; I asked him if the promotion has ended, why is it they still had that banner at the front? I know. I know. It was worth a try. He called the showroom manager and because I guess he was feeling generous he agreed to provide me the liner at the promotional price! Excellent. I arrange for it to be delivered in the afternoon.
Returning back home after a good lunch with the family outside, I proceeded to install it in the garden. The first thing I noticed was that it was approximately the same shape as the old pond, but as the new liner was deeper, some digging was required.
The actual drudge of digging and removing the resulting sand is nothing out of the ordinary. It’s just toil which I rather enjoy.
The few gotchas you should pay attention to is the removal of any sharp objects in the cavity you are creating. Sharp rocks and roots need to be attended to. It might take you several attempts at getting the lining into the space you provided, but once you do, I suggest lining the hole with soft garden sand, maybe a couple of centimetres to provide a buffer would probably suffice. That also gives you a chance to level the liner as you want. It is probably a good idea to use a spirit level for the job. I eye-balled it and wanted it to lie with the land – the area where I installed it slopes down a bit and let the pond lie the same way too.
Once the liner is in place, and as this one had three differing levels, I found that the best way to stuff back the sand in order to support the pond from all sides is to open a 15cms trench all around the pond (once it is fitted) so that you can easily pour the sand at the sides and then shove it with your hands to where you want it to go.
That done, I put 80 litres of pond soil (2 bags), levelled and covered it with a 1 cm layer of clean sand – exactly as I have done with the Lily Pond before and filled it with water.
I bought a nice pump from Saudi a few months ago that I never used. It’s a powerful little thing with a built-in filter and several adapters to create a small fountain. It looked rather nice once I wired it up and turned it on.
The whole process took only a few hours to do over a couple of days which I rather enjoyed. I mixed some compost with the new sand around the pond yesterday afternoon and created a nice border around it. I filled that with some geraniums, a dahlia, a couple of impatience and a few asparagus bushes. Placed river stones all around the pond – mostly to stop the sand from overflowing into the pond and partly of course for decoration.
I’m going to put the fish back in it today and just sit either in the garden or simply peek at it through my study’s window and enjoy the sound of the new fountain while working!
Now, what’s the next project I can undertake for the remainder of this holiday I wonder?
