WILD AND wet
A natural swimming pond offers a chance to take a dip on your own doorstep while also supporting wildlife and enhancing your garden. Sarah and John Briggs decided to take the plunge
There comes a point in any garden’s life when a shake-up is required. It might coincide with new owners arriving or perhaps the forced removal of a dying tree. More often, it comes about through a change in life stage and for Sarah and John Briggs, it was their children leaving home that signalled new possibilities for their south Leicestershire garden, once swings and slides were no longer required.
The swimming pond that is now its focal point has breathed new life into their outlook and completely reinvigorated Sarah’s love for gardening. “Having a young family and horses to care for didn’t give me much time for working in the garden,” Sarah says. “I would always start out in spring with great plans but by the time the summer holidays came around, the weeds would have taken over. The soil was poor, too, and I felt I was always fighting against it. Now that I have new beds to work on and we have enriched them with much better topsoil, I really enjoy spending more time out here.
“We are in a tranquil rural setting anyway, but when you are swimming or even just sitting on the deck, it is like an oasis,” Sarah continues. She has been struck by the increased wildlife the pond draws in, including dragonflies, damselflies and newts, as well as a host of birds. “Sparrows nest in the hedges now, wagtails come to drink at the pond’s edge and we must have had about 30 swallows swooping and diving last summer. One day, I witnessed a dog fight with a sparrow chasing a dragonfly – it was fascinating.” To site the pond,
designer Paul Mercer of Norfolk-based The Swimming Pond Company (theswimmingpondcompany.co.uk) first had to re-contour the sloping paddock that adjoined the main lawn to create a level area. Behind this he has put in a series of curving ribbon flowerbeds, filled with tall plants that envelop the pond. Inspired by the work of Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf and the American natural meadowstyle planting of landscape architects Oehme, van Sweden, Paul uses great swathes of perennials such as veronicastrum, eupatorium, helenium, salvias, hardy geraniums, Verbena bonariensis and sedums, interspersed with grasses, to provide structure for at least three seasons of the year.
“Grasses are new to me and I love them,” Sarah says, “especially those such as Stipa gigantea and the many miscanthus varieties Paul has introduced here.” She enjoys the gradual transitions the plants go through as the seasons progress. In very early spring, they are all cut to the ground and the beds are carefully weeded. Tulips and then alliums provide colour until the perennials green up and begin to flower.
After that, the plants get better and better and it is just a question of keeping it tidy and tackling any weeds as they emerge. The seed heads are left standing for the birds all winter until it is time to cut everything down again. Sarah reports that most of the perennials are self-supporting as they are densely planted in blocks and hold each other up, but on sedums she sometimes uses the “Chelsea chop” (cutting back the stems of late-flowering perennials by half at the end of May to limit their size) to stop them getting too leggy and straggly. She is happy with Paul’s choice of plants but is now gaining the confidence to add her own touches. Recent introductions include a couple of dieramas (angel’s fishing rods), which she bought on a garden-visiting trip to Kiftsgate in Gloucestershire with John.
The swimming pond is made up of two merging zones, each roughly equal in size. A wall separates the swimming zone from the pebbled regeneration zone that completely surrounds it – this stops 20cm below the water level, so that water can move freely between the two zones. The swimming zone is kept clear of vegetation and the outer zone is planted up with marginal and oxygenating aquatic plants that act as a biological filter by drawing nutrients out of the water. Favourites of Paul’s for this purpose include Cyperus longus with attractive red-brown seed heads, blue-flowering brooklime Veronica beccabunga, marsh marigold Caltha palustris, yellow flag iris Iris pseudacorus and purple loosestrife Lythrum salicaria. “We also have water mint Mentha aquatica,” Sarah says. “It releases a lovely minty smell when our dogs
“Sparrows nest in the hedges, wagtails come to drink at the pond’s edge and swallows swoop and dive”
walk on it on their way in for a quick swim.” She treats the regeneration zone like another flowerbed, keeping an eye on it throughout the year and removing dead leaves as necessary, often while she is swimming. It is cut back completely once a year, in November.
Above the grassed swimming pond area of the garden, Paul has created a vegetable garden with brick-edged beds terraced into the slope. Sarah has enjoyed getting to grips with this, introducing new crops for the table and nurturing espalier-trained fruit trees against the walls. As it is on a south-facing slope, it gets plenty of light and there are wonderful far-reaching views over the Leicestershire countryside.
Having more time to garden has been a turnaround for Sarah: “I can’t wait to get out there now and experiment. I’m already planning new beds I want to plant. The new landscaping has transformed what was a bit of a wasteland and I am making the most of it.”
“Water mint releases a lovely smell when our dogs walk on it on their way in for a swim”