Make a wildlife pond

HOME	*Make a Wildlife Pond*
See Jenny's article on the Guardian Unlimited website	Constructing a wildlife pond is one of the best ways to encourage birds, insects, mammals and amphibians to your garden. Any pond is useful in the garden, but one made specially for wildlife will tempt birds and mammals to drink, dragonflies and damselflies to breed, and encourage toads, newts and frogs to take up residence in your garden. A pond is also a constant source of interest for those with a little time to sit and watch.

	The overall shape of the pond is not important, but its profile is. There should be at least one gently sloping slide to enable birds, amphibians and mammals to reach the water in safety. Many hedgehogs drown in garden ponds as a result of slipping in whilst drinking. Once in the water they find it impossible to scramble out if all the sides are steep. Having a gently sloping edge will also give you the opportunity to grow plants that prefer to live in just a few inches of water. A shallow shelf (around 6 to 9 inches below the surface of the water) will also allow you to grow marginal plants. Try to have at least one area of the pond between two and three feet deep for water lilies and other plants requiring deeper water. This will also provide a safe place for some aquatic animals to spend the winter.
	Many types of pond liner are available from garden centres and by mail order. Those from the latter are usually the cheapest. Butyl liners last for many years, but are expensive compared to polythene liners, which are effective and reasonably long lasting. Concrete is rarely used for lining ponds now, and preformed fibre glass liners are, in general, not suitable for wildlife ponds, due to their inappropriate shapes.
Once the pond has been dug, and the liner inserted (best to use the manufacturers instructions to do this), then you can begin to think about plants for your pond. A wildlife pond is generally back-filled with a certain amount of soil, or upturned turfs to give your plants a rooting medium. It is not necessary to choose just British wild flowers for your pond, but these will encourage wildlife and look more natural in an informal way. Try to include plants for shallow water, margins, deep water and some with floating leaves, as well as plenty of oxygenators. The best time to plant up your pond is late spring.
	Many wild creatures will find their own way to your pond once it is full of water. Water beetles, dragonflies, damselflies, pond skaters and water boatmen, will all find your pond as they fly past looking for new habitats to colonise. Often frogs, toads and newts will also find your pond without help, If you have a friend with a pond, a bucket of water, a small amount of mud from the bottom of their pond, or a handful of oxygenating weed, will help to introduce some of the smaller animals including pond snails. It is rarely necessary to buy snails, they generally turn up as eggs on pond weed. A wildlife pond requires little maintenance, other than carefully removing excess plants every couple of years. The best time to do this is in the late autumn. The plants that have been removed should be left on the pond edge overnight to allow any small creatures to crawl out and find their way back into the water. During dry weather the pond should be topped up, little and often. If you can organise the rain water run-off from your house or shed roof to find its way into the pond, so much the better. This will help to reduce the problem of blanket weed, as will submerging a bundle of barley straw in the deepest part of the pond. Equally important, try to ensure that you have at least half of the pond surface covered with plant leaves which will cut down the amount of light and heat entering the water.
Pond Plants Wildflowers suitable for a bog garden include Bugle, Water Betony, Cowslip, Devil’s Bit Scabious, Valerian, Purple Loosestrife, Marshmallow, Meadowsweet, Lady's Smock, Ragged Robin, Water Avens, Hemp Agrimony, Common Fleabane, Gipsywort, Yellow Flag and Marsh Woundwort. Wildflowers for the pond margins could include Bogbean, Water Mint, Soft Rush, Lesser Spearwort, Brooklime, Water Plantain, Flowering Rush and Water Forget-me-not. Deeper water plants include Fringed Water Lily, White Water Lily and Arrowhead. For oxygenators, try to obtain British natives if you can as these do not take over as some of the non natives do. Do not include Parrot’s Feather and Australian Swamp Stonecrop as these are extremely invasive and causing huge problems in natural waterways. Plants to avoid : A few British wildflowers are invasive. Best not to introduce Greater Spearwort, Water Parsnip and Cyperus Sedge, unless you have a very large pond. There are many non native water plants that are excellent for wildlife ponds. Do try to avoid anything very invasive, and beware of some garden centre plants which may not be hardy.

	To find out more about making a wildlife pond, order Jenny Steel's Gardening with Nature book on creating Wildlife Ponds. Click here 32 pages with information on pond creation, planting, wildlife and maintenance. 17 colour photos.