Few garden features repay you as generously as a pond, and it really does not need to be grand. A buried washing-up bowl holding twenty or thirty litres will be found by frogs, water beetles and pond skaters within a season, and dragonflies will patrol it by the following summer. Garden ponds have quietly vanished from much of the British landscape over the last fifty years, so even a tiny one is a genuine act of repair. You do not need a pump, a filter or a mains supply. You need a container, a spade, rainwater and a little patience.
Most pond plants and pond creatures want sunshine, so aim for a spot that gets sun for at least half the day, ideally with a little shade in the afternoon so the water does not overheat in a hot spell. Deep shade will leave you with few flowers and a great deal of fallen leaf litter.
A washing-up bowl, an old butler sink or a half barrel all work well. A butyl or EPDM liner in a dug hole gives you more freedom of shape and size, and for a small wildlife pond a finished depth of about 30 to 45 centimetres is plenty — deep enough to stay cool in summer and not to freeze solid in winter.
Dig the hole slightly wider and deeper than your container, sit it in, and check the rim is level before you backfill. Leave the rim two to five centimetres proud of the surrounding soil so that rainwater running across the ground does not wash soil in. If you are using a liner, line the hole with sand or an old piece of carpet first to protect it from stones.
Fill the pond with rainwater from a butt if you can. Tap water is treated and nutrient-rich, which encourages algae; a new pond filled from the tap will often turn green for weeks. Add a few bricks or stones to create a shallow shelf, and place a small pile of pebbles at one edge as a drinking and bathing spot for birds.
Plants shade the water, shelter larvae and use up the nutrients that would otherwise feed algae. Choose British natives and plant them in aquatic baskets filled with loam-based aquatic compost rather than rich multipurpose compost.
Do not overplant. A small pond crammed with baskets becomes a bog, and you need some open water for the wildlife to use.
It is tempting to add a few goldfish, but resist. Fish eat frogspawn, tadpoles, newt larvae and almost every insect that settles in the water, and their waste feeds algae. A fish-free pond simply holds far more life.
You do not need to stock it at all. Frogs and newts will find a new pond by themselves, sometimes within weeks. Insects arrive on the wing — water beetles, pond skaters, damselflies and dragonflies. Please do not move spawn or plants in from another pond, as this risks spreading amphibian disease and invasive weeds. Let your pond colonise itself, and give it two or three years to settle into its own balance.
In summer, top up with rainwater rather than tap water, and keep an eye on water levels during dry spells. Net out fallen leaves in autumn — decaying leaves are the main cause of green, soupy water. If you have planted near deciduous trees, a net stretched over the pond for a few weeks makes the job far easier.
Never empty and scrub a pond. A thorough clean kills everything living in it. If silt builds up over several years, lift out a little in late autumn, leave it at the pond edge for a day so creatures can crawl back, then compost it.
Leave the pond alone in winter: frogs and newts spend the cold months tucked into the silt. If the surface freezes, rest a pan of hot water on it to melt a hole rather than smashing the ice, which sends damaging shock waves through the water. A nearby log pile gives amphibians somewhere to shelter and hibernate, and a few stones at the edge will be used by everything from bees to blackbirds. Then all you have to do is sit back and watch.
The Kind Brook shares practical, down-to-earth guidance on gentle living, nature and wellbeing for readers across the UK.
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