Pond shelves

[Brummiebird]

Hi there
I have just dug a wildlife pond abot 2.5m sq and 45cm deep.The is a ledge about 10 inches deep around most of it for marginals.
I have become confused as to whether this is a good depth for the marginal plants.Is 10 inches deep ok?Might actually be slightly more or less in places actually.

Thanks in advance

[Kayleigh]

Its fine as long as the plants stay put as mine is not wide enough but I cant do anything about that now.
I have plants all round now so it dont matter any more the plants will be OK..

[Ukwildlifeo]

Some nice shallow (less than 10cm) margins are good for wildlife. In fact they are richest areas in terms of species

[Brummiebird]

Sounds like the marginals are fine then.Another one of my many queries is my pond is only about 2.5msq so creating shallows of 10cm or so without having cliff like dips into the deep isn't easy.Done my best most of the way round but there are some steep drops in there too.
Will try upload some pictures when I get homwe from work.

[King Edward]

Have you lined the pond yet or is it still in the construction phase? 10" is too deep for many marginals unless they are planted in baskets, in which case the top of the planting medium should be around 1"-4" below the surface.

It would be good to have some areas of shallow water (0"-4" around the edge, but you don't necessarily have to have this all the way round - if space is limited it would probably be better to have a relatively wide shallow shelf on one side, sloping gently up from say 4" to 1" deep, rather than very narrow margins all round. If you could manage to do this then you could plant directly into a layer of sand on the bottom rather than in baskets.

[Brummiebird]

Have not yet put the liner in.My shallows go fro 0-6 inches and ledges about 10 inches deep.Was thinking about putting a rock or 2 in the shallows for things to sit on.Maybe put some gravel on the ledges aswell.
Am I right in think if my ledges are 10inches the the basket orpot must be atleast 4inches high?

lol This pond building not as simple as I first thought

[King Edward]

I'm not sure that there are all that many plants that would grow in 10" of water that wouldn't grow in 18". So either you plant deep water plants directly on the shelves (weighed down with a stone perhaps on a layer of sand/gravel), or you plant marginals in baskets 6"-8" deep giving 2"-4" of water above the basket.

What I'd probably do would be to plant some small creeping marginals in sand around the shallows, and some larger marginals such as Yellow Flag and other vigorous species in the baskets. You could also encourage submerged and floating leaved plants to grow around the baskets (e.g. Frogbit, Hornwort, Amphibious Bistort), so that in time the baskets will be hidden beneath a dense mass of mixed vegetation.