 | Although flower and plants are living things and lovely to behold, nothing says “life” like living, breathing creatures—and nothing will attract them to your landscape or garden quite like water. Creating wildlife ponds means not only improving your garden aesthetically, but improving the environment as well. As marshlands are drained and natural water resources become polluted, your pond can become a haven for creatures, that, quite frankly, need a home.
You can encourage wildlife to take up residence in and around your pond simply by incorporating a few features. The following article provides a general overview about wildlife ponds and includes useful tips on design, care and types of creatures you may attract to your landscape.
When considering the design of your pond, whether large or small, it’s best to build in shallows and depths to the pond. It’s also a good idea to incorporate an access area for animals to enter and exit by such as a gentle slope or an edging of turf. Sloped sides will also assist various plant species to root—some require shallow water and others will do just find in deeper areas. Of course, by adding plants around the edges of your pond, you allow it to relate best with the natural surroundings so that it becomes quite blended with its setting.
Although you definitely want that access area to gently slope, you need other sides of the pond to dip a bit more dramatically in order to provide you with an adequate volume of water for the surface area. Liner material works well for pond construction, but concrete could also be used. For larger ponds, there are alternative avenues for construction, but this way will work well for any pond. If you are adapting an ornamental pond into a wildlife pond, you may have to use a bit of ingenuity to create varying levels. Try adding pieces of slate to use as water ramps.
An ideal wildlife pond will have the following elements: various and many native plants, moving water, sunny spots, cool shady spots and any other conditions best suited for the particular wildlife you want to attract. Keep in mind that many native garden plants suited for water situations tend to be vigorous and aggressive which could easily overpower smaller garden ponds—containers would be a good option for some of these. Certainly, you’ll need a healthy amount of underwater oxygenating plants and floating plants—both will encourage wildlife to shelter in your garden.
Some great plant choices for the pond area that aren’t too invasive are the following: dwarf soft rush, cuckoo flower, water plantain, cotton grass, mare’s tail, Norfolk reed, water mint, milfoils, maidenhair fern, water lilies, etc…Certain plants like the yellow water iris are perfect for creating isolated areas within your pond’s range; this water iris is constrained by the water’s depth to it will remain a small colony for the creatures that live there.
Doubtlessly, you will need to investigate an extensive variety of plants and may need to experiment with some in containers to see just how they adapt to your situation and how you would prefer them to behave. Again, much depends on the type of animals you expect to attract to your area. The interplay between water plants and algae, the light that is allowed to filter into your pool are both important considerations.
While the aim of wildlife ponds is to get as close to nature as possible, it is nearly impossible to recreate the balance of life as it exists truly in nature. For example, when keeping fish in the pond, you will find it difficult to keep predatory fish from devouring all your smaller variety. In a large lake, of course, they are needed to keep the population of small fish in check. But for your purposes, you may have to incorporate more contrived methods to keeping your fish healthy. For this reason, you may need to limit your pond’s fish to one species or include fish of the same sex to control the population.
As for birds, the larger variety like herons and seagulls should be discourage if you keep fish—or you will not have fish for long! Garden birds love a water source and will certainly benefit from your setting. Ducks and other kinds of waterfowl are not recommended for smaller pools because they will also eat small fish, certain underwater plants and important insects and their larvae. They can also be somewhat messy.
Amphibians can nearly always be found in and around wildlife ponds. Frogs, toads and newts will nearly always find their way to your pond on their own and colonize it quite naturally, so you will not have much to do on their score. Remember that they don’t spend all their time in the water; try to incorporate flower beds and tall grasses for them to shelter out of water in and nooks or crevices made with rocks would greatly assist them on land.
Other types of wildlife could include crustaceans like water shrimp and water louse. Snails grow well in hard water with minerals like calcium. Planarians and Tubifex worms are usually found in wildlife ponds as is a multitude of microscopic water life—single-cell protozoa for example.
When considering a wildlife pond, time will regularly need to be set aside to tend the ecosystem you have created—especially in the latter part of the growing season. Controlling the growth of plant and animal species is important in order to maintain some sort of healthy balance to the pond and its surroundings. Controlling growth will doubtlessly be the greatest obstacle to contend with, but then, even simple ornamental pools need a degree of care so, while water in the garden is lovely, that loveliness requires much attention.
Nevertheless, when you understand all the maintenance that goes into a wildlife pond and are still up to the task, you will have a hobby that surpasses many—a visually stunning interaction between nature’s elements and the knowledge that you have, indeed, given back to nature in a way that is pleasing to both man and animal-kind alike.
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