Hello and welcome to my wildlife pond in winter. We’ve had a light sprinkling of snow here in Surrey just a few moments ago, which was very exciting!
Since my last update, my wildlife pond has changed considerably as the plants’ foliage has died back and retreated. What once was a lush, leafy sanctuary is still just as important a refuge for wildlife, but this area is now resting until springtime.
Hello and welcome to my wildlife pond in springtime. Over the past few weeks, our weather has been so very summery; my Marsh Marigold flowers have simply sparkled in the sunshine! I’m having an amazing time by my wildlife pond. I’ve got some really exciting news to share with you about the wildlife I’ve seen by my pond; I’ve even got a homemade video for you – so you can share in the excitement, but first of all, let me tell you about the water in my pond and show you how my aquatic plants have developed since my last update…
Water LevelsI took this picture not long after my last pond update.
I am so grateful for my little pond; this small area of water attracts many insects to our garden. As well as planting up my pond with aquatic plants that live in water, I’ve planted the narrow border around my pond with garden plants that will attract bees, butterflies, moths, hoverflies, and other insects. If you’re interested in growing plants for bees and butterflies, you won’t need a pond or a boggy area of ground to grow these garden plants – they grow in regular garden soil – my plants are growing in free draining, sandy soil; so I’ve chosen mostly drought tolerant plants.
The reason we created our wildlife pond was to support and encourage wildlife. I’d love to be able to tell you about every creature that has ever visited my pond, but I don’t manage to spend as much time here as I would like and I’m not the fastest mover, so I’ve only managed to capture a fraction of the wildlife that has visited this area of my garden.
I thought I’d share with you some photographs I’ve taken of my wildlife pond this spring and early summertime. I’m not sure if you’ve seen my pond before; this pond was created last year (here’s the first article I wrote about this pond). To guide you through the season, I’ve added my photographs to this article in date order.
Over the past year, I’ve watched in despair as algae has wrapped its ever extending arms around my pond; I feel like algae is threatening to suffocate my pond at any moment. The other ponds I’ve created in the past have never really suffered with algae to the same extent that my current pond has.
