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I have just filled in a large pond.I Drained the pond and removed the liner. I used bricks and stones to line the bottom and the bought 4 tons of top soil and a ton of soil improver and rotted horse manure.After all this had work and cost the recent rain has created a muddy bog in the pond hole, what can I do to make this fit for planting.

Niall C.
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Sharon
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    Removing the bricks and stones that you used to line the hole would be a good start. Normal earth is "soil all the way down" till you get to the solid bedrock. – alephzero Jun 16 '19 at 09:58
  • Agree - not sure why you lined with bricks and stones, but you've unfortunately created a poor draining mud pit by doing that, you'd have been better to fill in with topsoil and your organic soil improvers on their own. – Bamboo Jun 16 '19 at 18:47
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    Thanks, I thought that adding the hard core would provide extra drainage, as the bottom of the pond looked like clay. Looks like I have a lot more hard work ahead of me to sort out the problem, it’s a ‘big’ pond! – Sharon Jun 17 '19 at 08:51
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    Thanks again I am considering my options as I cannot do anything until this rain finally stops (if it ever does). – Sharon Jun 17 '19 at 15:33
  • Oh and of course I meant ‘boggy’ soil (typo!) – Sharon Jun 17 '19 at 15:35
  • Words I have learned on this site: drywell, french drain. I don't remember where I learned about the Soil Test: 1. get a glass jar 2. fill with water halfway(so the jar is 2/3 full) 3. fill with soil halfway 4. shake hard 5. wait for about an hour. The clay-ness of the soil becomes apparent. – Vorac Jun 29 '22 at 02:02

2 Answers2

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An easier solution to hauling it all out may be to make a raised bed there. The bottom will likely remain a water reservoir.

From your descriptions I suspect that the location was always boggy, and a previous owner made a virtue out of a necessity and put in a pond.

A raised bed either formal (plank or concrete block) or informal (rocks, logs) will allow the ex-pond to be the drain for the raised bed. I would suggest at least a foot elevation.

Sherwood Botsford
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    I have heard more than one story of someone building a pond in a low muddy area in a yard ,sort of two birds with one stone. – blacksmith37 Nov 15 '19 at 00:20
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Why not make virtue out of necessity and plant a bog/damp garden? You could do worse than having a look at Beth Chatto's book Beth Chatto's Damp Garden: Moisture-Loving Plants for Year-Round Interest - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beth-Chattos-Damp-Garden-Moisture-Loving/dp/1844030458. Here's a couple of RHS links for bog gardens: https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=356 and https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=807

Peter4075
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