Bought a house with a (neglected) pond

[bananana]

Hello everyone,

I bought and moved in recently to a new house where no one lived for about 5 years, and so the beautiful pond in the garden has been long neglected. However, there are living plants, fish, frogs, flowers, salamanders... even a Lotus flower!
It's the first garden and pond ever in my life so I feel a little overwhelmed when thinking of tidying it up.

Basically where I would like to start is with all the straw that is growing in the pond and clearly taking over it. Since I don't know much about ponds I didn't want to just try to pull it out in case that it's really hard rooted in the bottom and it would ruin something.

I hope you manage to figure something out for me from the pictures. I will try to add some more/clearer pictures later on.

 

[Dave 54]

With alot of work this pond could be made beautifull again but it all depends on what you want for the pond i;e the simplest thing would be to keep ot as a wildlife pond.
Or you could strip everything out of the pond plant wise see what you have then think about keeping either koi or goldfish.
The working parts of the pond i'e waterfall pump etc would have to be checked out and perhaps removed , worst case senario is the liner has a leak and so would have to be removed and a new one laid in its place .

Dave

 

[RobAmy]

Welcome, you have a little work in front of you but it looks very doable. Dave has given some good advise as far as pulling plants, that usually does not do damage just do not use tools to do it and watch out for roots under the edging

 

[addy1]

to our group! Agree with the above info^^^ use no tools pulling the plants. I would also recommend you put on some heavy work gloves while doing it. Grasses make a lot of cuts when pulling them, protect your skin

If you have a serrated knife, that is the best to cut the grass roots, just make sure you only cut up, never down.

 

[bananana]

Thanks everyone so far! I'm definitely not planning on removing everything and starting from zero (and I would actually prefer not to have any fish!) so to start I'll definitely try pulling out some of that grass. It's actually quite dense growing so not sure how to go about it but I'll give it a try! The pond is so much bigger than it seems but the grass has just taken over the half of it!

Is the liner that black material that covers the ground and sides? That's what I'm afraid of damaging if I pull roots out really.
Since I have just bought the house and have many costs, and unfortunately the pond doesn't really get priority, I will have to concentrate for the timebeing on the things I can do myself without spending money on materials/pumps/filters/workforce. Of course I'd just love to call some pond company and let them do everything... haha

 

[addy1]

Start at the edge of the grass, see if the roots went though the liner, yes it is the black thing on the bottom and sides. If they did not just start at the side of the clump, remove a little at a time. I do that when working on land grasses, a little at a time and a lot easier to remove. I use a serrated knife on my land grasses, and even on the pond iris. Just make sure the blade is pointing to the sky when you go to saw through some of the roots.

 

[bananana]

Oh goodness for such a garden newb as me this all sounds so hard!! I hope I manage... haha

 

[addy1]

Take your time, it has been this way for a while, it will last until you decide you have the time and desire to tackle it.
Like my one sister says...............how do you eat an elephant?........................one bite at a time.

 

[sissy]

Welcome Are you sure the grasses are actually growing in the pond or on the edge and have been left go and grew into the pond in search of water .That is not going to be an easy task but if you get started before they really get started growing it should be a little easier

 

[j.w]

bananana
What a job! Just take it one step at a time. It looks like it could be a nice pond to enjoy eventually