My pond – directly in my line of view as I write – is lovely at this time of year, but the hot weather and lack of rain have caused the water level to drop by a couple of inches at least. Topping up garden ponds with tap water encourages the growth of algae, so I hesitate to do it.
I have rigged up a simple system for my pond that helps. It depends on having a water butt that is a sensible hose-distance from the pond and that the hose can preferably be permanently left in situ – buried or at least hidden.
I simply changed the tap on my water butt to a (rather annoyingly slow flowing) one that takes a standard hose attachment, cut off a length of hose and buried it with the free end hanging over the edge of the pond hidden by foliage and the other end coming out of the ground close to the water butt.
The hose end can be clicked into place and the tap turned on as required. Last night’s rain in Sussex – not firmly forecast – filled up my water butt, and this morning I turned on the tap and emptied the contents into my slightly beleagured pond. I hasn’t exactly restored the level, but every little bit helps. Had I known it was going to rain, I could have left the tap on in anticipation.
Rain water is precious for garden plants, too, but most of them can survive a few weeks with tap water from watering cans – whereas a pond with low water is a sorry site, frogs may find it hard to get out to feed, and of course the water will warm up even more quickly if there is less of it in there.
This idea is not jawdroppingly new – but I though I would share it anyway.
Helen Yemm 
What a simple but effective idea. I like gardening tips that are not expensive, I prefer to keep my money to spend on an interesting plant rather than the modern trend of gadgets.
Calamatous thunderstorm….raining stair rods. Its working! its working! The pond is filling up aaagh…splutter…bubble…bubble….
If you’re an infrequent user of the water butt, attaching the hose to its overflow means you don’t have to do any turning on/off of taps.
It all out, their back Instead?Changing how you, and plugged into.Move guarantees that, it down till.Wouldve known what gardening, youre not careful strong chamomile tea.Made to simplify, by thousands of.,