Pond in woodlands

[ToyB]

Hi, we have a largish pond which a lot of the wildlife seem to appreciate but it has a lot of overhanging trees which I am told is not good for the habitat. What can we do barring chopping the trees down. It's on the edge of some woodlands and as it has nearly dried out we have removed all the organic debris that has built up so it is back to a claysoil

The pond is about 40 foot by 10 and has a large horse chestnut covering most of it along with a few other trees. We want it as a wildlife habitat and it doesnt have fish. Is there anyway of compensating for it's lack of light.

Also any advice as what to do with it. It has varying depths but apart from water there arent any plants in it. It seems to be a rather large bird bath which doesnt really seem to be taking advantage of it.

[eeyore]

the problems are two fold

a) in times of water shortage the trees will aborb the water from the pond and transpire it into the atmosphere - there aint much you can do about this short of chopping them down

b) in the autumn the trees will drop eaves int the pond and in the spring and summer they will limit the light- it may be possible for a tree surgeon to take off some of the overhanging limbs - although I couldnt say for sure without seeing it, but short of this (or felling ) all you can do is regular working parties to get all the gunk out of the bottom before it degrades.

welcome to WAB by the way

[Alan]

Hi ToyB, and welcome to the forum.

Have you got room to dig a new pond and leave the trees alone?

[FungiJohn]

Hi ToyB and welcome to WAB. Enjoy!

A picture might help to suggest improvements to your pond
John

[catalaze]

The problem with your woodland pond is the shade, and there is no way of getting over it without removing at least some of the tree boughs. If this is out of the question, then I do agree: build another pond somewhere else.

If this sounds hard, I'm sorry! It isn't meant to be but if you actually own the woodland there probably is a better place to put a pond. Also, you speak of cleaning it out down to the clay ... I think there's a bit of text missing there. Were you about to say it had a puddled clay bottom with no liner or lining? If so, that might be the reason it is emptying too fast. Such a bottom may well be traditional but it is also traditionally leaky. Putting in the best quality butyl liner you can get hold of would solve the leakiness and there are a variety of techniques you can use to provide vegetated edges. This wouldn't, however, solve the problem of insufficient light.

Light doesn't penetrate water very far. When the chestnut is in leaf, very little of the wavelengths of light necessary for plant growth are going to reach the pond at all. Thus, submerged plants (on which all else depends) are unlikely to grow.

Ideally any pond is in a clearing or a clear space. The leaves falling from trees do pollute water if there are too many of them, but the light is the primary problem. You need somewhere that, apart from, say, a willow or two (which can be easily and regularly pruned back) is not overhung by trees and, preferably, is surrounded by several metres of meadow or woodland glade. I'm assuming you have a considerable area at your disposal.

If you have any further thoughts on the matter, come back again. I and many others will, I'm sure, be eager to supply a mountain of ideas on pond development...

[eeyore]

Horse Chestnuts are very prone to fungal attack if they are pruned or crown thinned so if you are going this rout you might as well take the tree out entirely as the chances of it surviving an extensive crown thin in the long term are remote.

[Gill Catton]

well I don't know, I've found more than one woodland pond stuffed full of newts (smooth ones anyway) sometimes toads too and invertebrates like waterboatman and caddis flies , there may be a lack of emergent vegetation but the newts seem to lay on the fallen leaves within the water.
I would probably just advise very periodic clearing out so that it doesn't disappear completely - the odd year of being dry though does the ponds a favour, as should fish arrive by the magic means they seem to, the drying out of the pond will remove them making the pond suitable for newts again!. I've found wet ditches in pitch black railway tunnels that still supported water crickets and spiders on the miniscus. Many of the pingos on Thompson Common were very over-shaded and sparsely vegetated and still seemed to support dragonflies and/or damsels - though perhaps the key thing there was the proximity of other more suitable ponds so the advice on building a new pond nearby more in the light is a good one.

[Airehead]

I think ponds in woods are often transitory. Perhaps you would consider a compromise by maintaining it as a bog?

[ToyB]

Well Thank you all for all your help, it is much appreciated Over the weekend we have cut back branches from some over hanging trees, leaving the horse chestnut which was a relief because we weren't quite sure how to reach it anyway.

I have tried to import some images of it but me or my computer seem non capable of doing this.The pond was orginally a watering hole for a small farm, I think

We have also dug it out deeper having removed the fallen debris so that it is at least half to a meter deep and probably around 1.5 - 2 in winter. We will probably let nature fill it but is there a way of keeping down the mozzies without using fish which I am told will also the spawn. What if we had a few stickleback?

Ok so if we were to put another pond in the field, what would we need to consider. The field is about two acres and some of it would be kept roughly cut but not lawn. There are trees but I take it we are avoiding them from now on

Again thanks for all your help

[Storming]

Originally Posted by ToyB

Ok so if we were to put another pond in the field, what would we need to consider. The field is about two acres and some of it would be kept roughly cut but not lawn. There are trees but I take it we are avoiding them from now on

I know a lot of current advice is that one should not have trees round the water, but I'm not so sure. All the natural pools and ponds you ever see have trees around them. I'm not suggesting surrounding the pond with trees as that can certainly detract from it's use as a flight pond, but I think that some trees providing shade and perching can enhance the mix of environment round the pond.

Regarding the fish/no fish argument, fish turn up of their own accord, and it's highly unlikely that you will stop them. To my mind, a small side area of bog or very shallow water would help the creepy-crawlies that the fish might find tasty.