Ponds are for Life, not Just Frogs
- Lakshmi Williams
- 5 hours ago
- 5 min read
A spare piece of pond liner sparks the accidental creation of a small, imperfect wildlife pond that quietly transforms a garden into a thriving haven for frogs, newts, and unexpected life.
It all started with a piece of leftover pond liner.
Bryn had re-lined her ancient pond and found she had more than she needed. What could she do with the extra bits - apart from digging up a new pond? That’s where I came in.
How do you install a pond? Simple: dig a hole in the ground and fill it with water.
When it comes to new, never-done-before projects, I call on hapless friends who have no clue what they’re in for, only to discover they can’t back out. Jenny volunteered to help me dig the pond.
“Just dig a hole.”
“How deep?”
“Till I tell you to stop.”
And that’s exactly what she did.
However, Jenny never stopped. By the time Bryn came around to supervise “Operation Pond Digging,” the hole was four feet wide and three feet deep, just perfect to put the leftover pond liner to good use.
Phew!
A pond is a small body of “still water.” I was happy with that, but what I didn’t know was that you need to decide if you want a wildlife pond or an ornamental pond. As the name suggests, a wildlife pond takes care of itself, needs very little human intervention; and if it looks untidy — well, “it’s a nice kind of untidy,” said Jenny just as she scrambled out of the hole she had gotten herself into.
In August, when the iris is cut down and the rudbeckia in the forefront comes into its own, my garden never seems to let all the plants bloom at the same time. One dies and another lives. But the duckweed in the pond never dies.
The first thing Bryn asked us was why we had dug a hole in the middle of a large flower bed. Well, because there were dahlias growing there and they didn’t look good...but does it really matter where you put a pond? It turns out that yes, it does.
My pond is now overshadowed by a young apple tree on one side, a large verbena shrub behind it, and is dangerously close to the path. You could fall in on nights when you have been silly and legless.
We filled the pond with tap water and waited for the wildlife to move in. John and Cathy, who are keen pond owners (ponders), suggested that I take a jam jar, and fill it with water from their pond, and introduce tadpoles that way. Easy enough, I thought - until they warned me that tadpoles are cannibals and could eat one another by the time I completed the ten-minute walk from their garden to mine. I began the exodus with about twenty-five tadpoles and ended up with ten.
Bryn casually dropped a few water plants into the pond, including a lily, a water soldier, duckweed, along with a few snails. The plants multiplied, and so did the wildlife. Still water attracts frogs, sure enough, but each time I walked up the path, I would hear a splash and never see a frog. Just once, I spotted a frog that was reluctant to hide. It was a hot afternoon, and only his eyes, half-closed in ecstatic warmth and dark duckweed, could be seen above the surface. I managed to get a picture and sent it to my sister in Chennai. The city was reeling under a heatwave, and she envied the bliss of a frog who could sit in still water and doze while she sweated and cursed in the heat.
“A pond should have newts,” said Bryn one day. “It’s a must-have aquatic creature.” So off I went to the pet shop and asked if I could buy newts. The owner gave me a long, thoughtful look.
“I would get arrested if I sold you newts,” he said.
They are protected by law, and they are rare.
“Newts just turn up,” he said. “If they are in the neighbourhood, they will find their way to your pond. You don’t go looking for them.”
But how would I know if there was a newt in my pond?
“You won’t,” he said, “which is a good thing because they are highly sought after by pond collectors. Newts stay at the bottom of the pond in winter, but they do rise to the surface and creep under the stones and rocks near ponds on warm days. You may see them when you clean your pond.”
But I never clean the pond. Why would I?
I occasionally dip a large tea strainer into the water to remove leaves and dried flowers that fall in on windy days, and sweep up the duckweed when it covers the entire surface.
Just once, though, I accidentally went deeper with the strainer. I scooped up rotting leaves that could have been sitting at the bottom of the pond for months, and there it was: the much-loved crested newt, desperately squirming in the shallow strainer.
I grabbed the camera to get the picture of a lifetime. John and Cathy were duly impressed. They believed their pond had newts too, but only in blind faith, as they had never seen one; and here I was with a picture of a crested newt in a pond that was only a few months old. True, they had lilies by the dozen, whereas I had only one.
Over the years, plants have grown around the pond. Long-forgotten irises occasionally pop up, grasses cover the stones that keep the pond liner down, and oregano and mint sometimes dare to show their heads. I know there are frogs because I see frogspawn every spring.
It all started with a bit of a pond liner looking for a home. I now have a pond that is a home to newts, snails, the occasional dragonfly, several frogs, a solitary lily and a clump of iris that never blooms.
A friend said exactly the right thing as he sipped a cup of tea beside the pond.
“Don’t change anything. Keep your garden wild and untidy.”
About the Author
Lakshmi Williams is 76 years old and lives in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the easternmost town in the UK. The North Sea is her neighbour. Very nice, you may say - but wait till you meet The Beast from the East: Siberian winds that hit the coast in winter. Her garden is east-facing, largely ruled by plants that refuse to behave. Beasts and birds are welcome, but human friends fear to tread. Walk softly, you could be stepping on a plant.
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