Do you still have a lot of roof battens and squared timber lying around from your last construction project and don't really know what to do with them? We have a few ideas for you here, because the wood can be used as a substructure for an artificial stream.
Not every wood is suitable for the stream
Versatile wood
Wood is an extremely versatile material that can be used to realize all kinds of exciting construction projects. You can use processed and unprocessed wood for composters, raised beds or garden furniture - or as the basis for a babbling brook on your own property. There are lots of great ideas for this:
- Construction of overlapping wooden gutters that allow water to flow down a slope
- halved and hollowed out tree trunks are joined together to form a stream
- Substructure made of squared timber and slats, which is covered with pond liner (and can no longer be seen on the later stream)
Especially if you just had to fell a few trees, the tree trunk stream is recommended as an unusual garden decoration. Unless, of course, you want to use it to cut logs for the stove. In addition, wood can not only be used for the construction of the actual stream, but also or instead for its lifelike decoration - for example in the form of thick branches that form the barrages.
Choosing the right type of wood
So that you can enjoy your wooden stream for a long time, you should use the most robust and durable types of wood for the construction. Softwoods such as birch, poplar and willow are less weather-resistant. Under the influence of water, these rot within a very short time and therefore require very good moisture protection. Hardwoods, on the other hand, are much more resistant and should therefore be preferred. These include species such as beech, oak, walnut or maple. However, these types of wood have a serious disadvantage: They are significantly more expensive than spruce & Co.
Protect wood from moisture
In order not to break the budget for building a wooden stream, you can use soft wood - and it must be protected from moisture very well. This can be done, for example, by using wood preservatives, although you should only use paints and glazes (66.50€) without toxic substances. Otherwise the poison could be washed out and damage the fish in the pond. But even without a fish pond, such toxic substances have no place in a biotope. If the wood is only used as an invisible substructure, covering it with a good pond liner is recommended. Be sure to place a fleece under this so that any splinters of wood do not tear the film and make it leaky.
tips
Not only dead wood can be used for the design of a stream. Some trees, such as willows or alders, love the moisture on the banks of a stream and can therefore also be planted in the garden next to one.