If you have a garden, you can have your own backyard wetland by building a garden pond. In spring and summer, the UK garden pond teems with life. Examples of most major animal groups can be found there.
Garden ponds provide house of entertaining activity for wildlife watchers and pond dippers. They're also important sanctuaries for amphibians like Common Frogs and Common Newts.
About one in ten UK gardens has a pond - there are about two million of them.
First build your pond
Where a pond is sited in the garden will influence its productivity and wildlife. Shallow exposed ponds will inevitably be warmer than deeper, shaded ponds. It is a good idea to vary parts of the pond so there are shaded and exposed areas as well as shallow margins and deeper water (50cm - 20ins) where certain species can escape hot summers and winter freezing.
Ponds will develop of their own accord with a minimum of management - as long as you get it right in the first place. Use a spirit level, pegs and a straight board to ensure that the pond edge is the same height all round. Excavated top soil can be used elsewhere to create an embankment or raised habitat of another sort. Shallow margins are important for emergent plants and to ensure that animals can leave the water.
Dragonflies need marginal plants when their aquatic larvae emerge as adults from the water. Frogs and toads need to clamber out of the pond. Hedgehogs often drown in ponds with steep sides.Most garden ponds are lined with a liner that may be of cast plastic or fibre-glass, or more flexible and rubber-based. Rigid liners may be hard to install and you cannot influence the pond's shape as much as with a more flexible liner. The latter, though, is easily punctured by stones and even dog claws. It is often useful to place a protective layer of, say, sand or carpet, under or over the liner. Flexible liner edges should be anchored in a stone-filled trench.
The nutrient quality of water is important in pond management. Lots of nutrients will often result in a profusion of algae, but this can controlled by planting the pond with a suitable mixture and density of aquatic plants - emergent ones, submerged ones, and floating open water ones. Tap water may be used to fill a pond (the chlorine will quickly disappear), although cold tap water should not be added in large amounts during hot weather or it may 'shock' the pond.
Suitable plants for a wildlife pond include:
- Edge and marsh plants - Water Mint, Yellow Flag Iris, Marsh Marigold, Brooklime, Rushes, Bogbean, Water Plantain.
- Shallow plants - Spearwort, Mare's Tail, Water Forget-me-not.
- Deep water plants - Water Crowfoot, Water Starwort, Water Milfoil, Hornwort, Willow Moss, Curled Pondweed.
- Floating-leaved plants - White and Yellow Waterlily, Floating Sweet-grass, Broad-leaved Pondweed, Water Soldier, Arrowhead.
Do not put ornamental fish (like Goldfish) in a garden pond or they'll eat most of the other small creatures. The only permissible fish are Sticklebacks, denizens of natural UK ponds and pools.
Remember that many animals that live in ponds use other habitats as well. Provide areas near ponds where amphibians and insects can hibernate or shelter - these include rotting log piles and rockeries. Aquatic species from amphibians to Grass Snakes may shelter in compost heaps. Birds and mammals from other habitats will often visit garden ponds to drink.
Maintaining a garden pond changes with the seasons. Summer is the time for pond dipping and maintenance/disturbance should be kept to a minimum as many species are breeding. Some nearby grass should be kept long for young amphibians to shelter in. Short grass areas allow a number of small animals to forage for worms and other minibeasts.
During autumn, falling leaves should be skimmed off the pond surface before they sink and overload the nutrient balance of the pond. Winter freezing is a problem for many small pond creatures. Holes should be opened in the ice to allow oxygen into the pond, and for toxic respiratory gases to escape. During spring, species are stirring again and obvious signs include the appearance of frogspawn. In late spring, the pond may be in danger of choking due to the preponderance of blanketweed and duckweed. Blanketweed can be teased out with a stick and duckweed can be skimmed from the surface. Again, the choice and density of larger water plants will reduces the potential problems from blanketweed and duckweed.
Your pond should be safe. If young children are likely to be around, it may be best to fence the pond off or cover it with a strong wire mesh grille.