A garden pond is a water feature constructed in a garden, normally either for aesthetic purposes or to provide wildlife habitat. The UK charity Pond Conservation has estimated that there are about two million garden ponds in the UK. Garden ponds can be excellent wildlife habitats.

However, knowing how to make a good wildlife pond in practice is rather a matter of trial and error at present because there is remarkably little reliable information available about how to create good wildlife ponds. Despite the popularity of garden ponds, despite dozens of books and web-sites offering advice about making garden ponds, in fact there have been virtually no studies of garden pond wildlife, the best designs for wildlife ponds or of how garden ponds should be managed to maximise their value for wildlife. As a result of this, advice about the making of ponds for wildlife is plagued by the repetition of a range of myths about ponds.

These myths were first identified in the early 1990s by Pond Conservation and described in an article in the magazine British Wildlife. The Garden Pond Blog, started by a member of Pond Conservation, aims to dispel some of these myths and help people make better garden (or backyard) ponds. Although people often say that garden ponds make a great contribution to the protection of freshwater wildlife there is in fact no evidence one way or the other to determine whether this is really the case.

This is because there have never been any careful studies made of garden ponds compared to ponds in the rest of the landscape. Because of this garden pond owners have the potential to make many original and valuable observations about the ecology of small waterbodies because so little is known about ponds generally, and specifically about the smallest natural ponds, which garden ponds replicate. Not everything about garden ponds is good.

Although invertebrate animals such as dragonflies and water beetles, and amphibians can colonise new ponds quickly, garden ponds also cause problems. In particular, garden ponds can be pathways for the spread of invasive non-native plants. In the UK the non-native species Crassula helmsii and Myriophyllum aquaticum, which cause considerable practical problems in protecting freshwaters, are both escapees from garden ponds.

Similar to 0 things you like: