©Marlene Condon
October 3, 2020
If you have a water garden situated at ground level, you’ve undoubtedly created a home for a variety of wildlife. Therefore, it’s not a good idea to thoroughly remove the water to get all the muck out from the bottom of your pond every fall, as advised by most books and garden centers. Water insects (such as dragonfly larvae and water striders), frogs (adults and tadpoles), and salamanders (such as Red-spotted Newts) require this organic substance that builds up over the course of the year in order to safely hibernate out of sight of predators.
Instead, reach down into the pond with a plastic measuring cup to scoop out just a bit of it each year. (Be sure to wear gloves, such as those made for doing dishes). This material is extremely fine so bring the cup back to the surface as slowly as you can to avoid clouding the water. It’s easier to see what you are doing if the water remains clear. Your goal is to keep the pond no more than about half-full of muck.
Although dead animals and decaying plants or plant parts (such as leaves) can deplete the water of oxygen and cause a change in the pH, you don’t need to find every single bit of plant debris. Take the big pieces that are easy to net or grab with your hands and forget about anything smaller; it serves as food for numerous organisms (such as aquatic worms and snails) that transform it into the muck that benefits so many kinds of critters.
Always place the objects taken from the pond into a basin (I use an old dishpan) so you can check for animals before bringing it to your compost pile. (If you wear reading glasses, you may need them for this task). I carefully check everything (such as leaves and twigs) as I grab them from the dishpan one by one to place around shrubs to decay. If creatures are clinging to the plant debris, I can return them to the pond. Some critters follow the water from the draining plant matter to the bottom of the dishpan. I pour them back into the pond after I’ve taken out all the leaves, twigs, etc.
If your pond has attracted wild animals that have made it their home, you undoubtedly have achieved a balanced ecosystem that can function effectively practically on its own, just as natural ponds must do.
Sadly, in our modern world, wetlands — large and small, permanent and temporary — are often treated as nuisance or undesirable areas. They are drained, filled in, or otherwise destroyed, leaving aquatic animals high and dry. Salamanders and frogs that need these habitats to survive are either killed or forced to locate to another wet area, but this is increasingly difficult for them to do. Our wildlife is losing ground, literally, but gardeners can help by making their artificial ponds welcoming all the year round to our wild critters.
Be proud of your oasis for wildlife!