Pond Wildlife

Creating a pond is the most effective way of attracting wildlife to your garden - especially frogs. By building a wildlife a pond you are helping to conserve the natural habitat of frogs and providing them with some much needed unpolluted living space. In this way you are doing your bit to help save this very much threatened spieces.

When you add a pond to your garden you are helping to increase the population of frogs - what an achievement that is!

When you construct the pond, it is important and necessary to provide a shallow water area around the edge of the pond as this is where most of your frog population will live - as well as aquatic creatures such as pond-skaters, diving-beetles and damselflies. Your new pond will also attract other wildlife such as birds and small mammals who will come to know your pond as a place to drink, bathe and feed. Imagine all the time you will spend sitting and watching nature right there in your own garden. It is extremely therapeutic to sit and watch and be 'at one' with nature. Today more than ever, creating a sanctuary where you can take time out to really relax and experience nature at close quarters, is a great health benefit and gives us the space to recharge our batteries.

Wildlife pond building The best place to site your new wildlife pond would be somewhere in the garden where it is partly sunny and partly shady. The siting of your pond for the purpose of creating a wildlife sanctuary is more important than if you were creating a purely ornamental pond.

Try to blend in your pond with the rest of your garden. By this, I mean it is probably better to put your pond next to long meadow grass for example rather than right in the middle of the garden. This is because for wildlife they have some place to hide away from sight and feel less vulnerable when they have the protection of surrounding grass, shrubs and trees. However, you will want to make the pond attractive to look at as well as providing a home for frogs, and so take time to look at where would be the best place for your new frog-pond.

Keep the edges of the pond gently sloping as this creates a transition are between open water and dry land, and allows easy access for frogs, toads and newts as well as mammals such as hedgehogs to come and drink.

You can help keep your pond healthy by using submerged oxygenating plants and these will also provide refuge for your pond wildlife. Floating-leaved plants will provide shade in the water and also restrict the growth of algae. And of course the leaves make great landing and sitting areas for frogs and dragonflies. Also, reeds and flag iris around the edge of the pond will provide food and refuge for your pond-dwellers.