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Ponds And Marshes
Garden ponds have made a huge
contribution to the conservation of amphibians. Marshland - damp areas at
the edges of ponds - can be made when ponds are constructed and is a
wildlife habitat in itself.
Valuable for:
Common frogs, common toads, smooth
newts, great crested newts, water beetles, dragonflies and damselflies,
grass snakes and aquatic and marsh plants. Ponds with fish support fewer
species of aquatic animals for the simple reason that fish eat them but
toads can co-exist with fish. Orange-tip butterflies lay eggs on
cuckooflower, one of many attractive native plants for pond margins or
marshes. Others include marsh-marigold, water avens, yellow flag,
brooklime, ragged-robin, bogbean and water-plantain.
Tips:
- Place your pond in a sunny part
of the garden. Warm ponds are better for many types of wildlife such as
amphibians, and dragonflies and damselflies. A pond does not have to be
too deep - about 60cm is deep enough - but it should have shallow areas
as well as this is where frogs will spawn.
- Even tiny ponds will support
wildlife but make your pond as large as possible.
- Incorporate areas of marsh
habitat as well as deeper water.
- The edges of the pond should be
as saucer-like as possible.
- If you must have fish, consider
having two ponds, one of them fish-free.
- Try to use British waterweeds
and avoid non-native species such as swamp stonecrop or New Zealand
pygmy weed Crassula helmsii (also sold as Tillea aquatica), parrot's
feather Myriophyllum aquaticum and floating pennywort Hydrocotyle
ranunculoides.
- Establish plenty of aquatic
plants in the spring to compete with algae. Expect some blanket weed in
the first year while plants are becoming established.
- Try to avoid topping up the pond
with tap water - it promotes algae and some insects actually live in the
draw down zone (exposed mud as the pond dries out). Instead, divert
rainwater direct from the roof or top up from water butts.
- Remove weed and leaves in the
autumn to avoid de-oxygenation problems.
- Only clear out one section of
the pond at a time.
- Leave any vegetation you remove
at the side of the pond for a day or so to give the small aquatic
animals tangled up in it a chance to get back to the water.
- Surplus pond vegetation makes
excellent compost.
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