January is a time for planning ahead but also reflecting. Making way to start new projects. For us, this means renovating and improving our wildlife pond. Our pond is without a doubt the focal point of our garden and has brought us a lot of joy, both in the construction and the incredible diversity of wildlife that has sprung up both in and around it. Ponds provide a source of food and water for wildlife, from grass snakes to damselflies, frogs and whirligig beetles. Ponds are a source of relaxation and education and provide a connection with nature for children and adults alike. Our pond was built during Lockdown 1, when the time we were allowed outside was surreally limited to one walk a day. The meditative process of digging, focusing and momentarily forgetting was both a welcome distraction and salvation.

Almost anything can be used to create a wildlife pond, from a bucket, a kitchen sink, to a lined, raised flower bed. During the past century, nearly 70% of ponds have been lost from our countryside, so our garden ponds are more vital for wildlife habitat than ever. The most important 2 things to remember about a wildlife pond are (i) one side should be shallow and sloping to allow easy access for wildlife and to contain stones or a brick for bees, hedgehogs etc to be able to drink and (ii) the other essential is to try and build the pond where there will be both sunshine and shade, so an east or west-facing side of the garden is ideal. Some sunlight is needed for survival of frogspawn. Shade and shelter can be created by aquatic and semi-aquatic plants. We saved ourselves the stress of planning out all the pond dimensions by buying a ready-made wildlife pond mould from Pelagic Aquatics in Matfield and literally dropping it in the rather large hole we had dug in our lawn, then backfilled the soil around it. The staff there are great with advice and will help to source a pond which fits into your garden requirements. We purchased only native British wild plants for our pond from Watersidenursery.co.uk, which include Marsh Marigold, Lesser Pond Sedge and the effortlessly cheery Yellow Flag Iris. 

In next month’s blog I’ll detail exactly how we built our pond and then added year-on-year improvements, along with our learnings over the last 3 years of wildlife pond-keeping. We’ve got our fingers crossed for the first ‘home-grown’ frogspawn this year, which would be the icing on the cake.