A still-water feature can bring garden to life
Are you a modern gardener? One who plants and nurtures your own garden space with an eye to enhancing the biodiversity in your community?
At my home, it’s taken a few generations but we are now at a point where we have torn up our property deed — figuratively — and replaced it with a consciousness of the impact our outdoor activity has on nature, up and down the street.
The most impactful addition you can make to your garden — and attract beneficial insects, song birds, butterflies and hummingbirds — is to add still water.
A half-barrel, a pond or any small container filled with water and “managed” will attract amphibians, dragonflies and many more helpful critters.
My top tips for still-water garden features:
Amphibians When you are successful in attracting frogs, toads and salamanders to your water garden, you have achieved a very special level of success. These creatures breathe through their skin and as such are very sensitive to environmental changes and pollution. Nurture them by not disturbing your water garden too severely each spring (I just give the top 20 per cent of the liner a scrub). Provide habitat with water plants.
Locate this water feature in partsun. Ideally, about 60 per cent of the water’s surface should be shaded — use a nearby leafy tree, or floating water plants. As well, broad-leafed water lilies produce leaves up to the surface of the water.
Avoid raccoons and mosquitoes The two objections that I hear most where water features are concerned are, “I don’t want raccoons” and “I don’t want to encourage mosquitoes.” To avoid raccoon problems, design your pond with sides that slope steeply downwards, about 50 centimetres deep. Raccoons can’t (or won’t) swim and are unable to swipe the fish from your pond if it’s steep enough.
Mosquitoes are easy to manage: Just put some gold fish or koi carp in your pond.
I have a 10-by-10-metre pond and I have about 30 small fish that do the job very nicely. You can have too many fish, though, as they create a carbon-rich environment that en- courages algae growth.
Butterflies and dragonflies love ponds Especially where water lilies and other broad-leafed plants sit on the water’s surface. These flying insects do not use bird baths to either drink from or bathe. They are both “top heavy” and prefer to drink from water droplets on the surface of water plants or in mud, which can occur at the margin of your pond. Note that dragonfly nymphs live in still water for up to four years before they mature into flying adults. Another good reason not to clean your pond too thoroughly each spring.
Have fun Through the 12 years that I have lived with our family pond, I have added sea shells from Florida vacations (what else are you going to do with them?), some broken clay pots where fish and frogs like to hide, and some shiny marbles from collections that the kids had and left behind when they moved away.
Safety My earlier tip about making the sides steep to avoid raccoons needs to be balanced with safety. Is your yard well fenced? If not, consider building a pond with a rigid metal screen over it and place river rocks on top of it. Secure the screen well from the water cavity below. It is an “invisible” pond that you can splash water into from a waterfall.
Marginals The plants that you establish around your pond are as important as the ones that you place in it. They provide cover for egg-laying and a drying post for emerging dragonflies. Consider native marsh marigolds, water iris, tall-water forget-me-nots, hibiscus and Joe Pye Weed (a butterfly magnet).
When you build a garden pond I recommend using a butyl pond liner — it will not break down like PVC will over time. It costs more, but it’s worth it.
The pond cavity should be lined with sand and a layer of polyester fibre that acts as a buffer against the existing soil (more likely clay and rocks).
You won’t be able to anticipate what will go on in your new water feature until you try it. Consider that animals on Africa’s Serengeti Plain meet at the watering hole each evening as they take a break from eating each other or being chased. It is a wild version of Cheers every night. Such is the power of water. Mark Cullen is an expert gardener, Order of Canada recipient, author and broadcaster. Get his free monthly newsletter at markcullen.com. Look for his new bestseller, The New Canadian Garden, published by Dundurn Press. Follow him on Twitter @MarkCullen4.