My little rain garden has been working really well and diverting the rain away from my house and into several little wildlife ponds and then down a little stream area that I created and planted up.
I felt that there was scope to take it a step further and to add a couple more sections to the end. The top two pools are quite deep and the stream is not really retaining any standing water. I wanted to create a final pool that would be shallower and suitable for birds and wildlife to drink.
The land is part of a quarry so I often just hit stone if I try to dig too deep, but here is a band of sandstone, so, at points, it is possible to chip away and break it up. I had a final strip of remnant pond liner, so I couldn't go too wide, so I dug a couple of shallows out from the ground, lined them and then lay the liner on top. Filling with water from the rain butt, I checked it formed the kind of pools I had envisaged. Once happy with the shapes, I then tidied up the edges and collected logs, rocks, ferns and. osses from around the garden. I used these to dress and plant up the edges for a natural finish.
I am pretty pleased with the results and hope these little pools will encourage bird and other wildlife to visit to drink and bathes over the winter.
You can see the whole process on my the video below. There are another three videos in this series, documenting the whole project, if you'd like to have a go yourself!
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