Matt Baker
THE PRESENTER GOES BEHIND THE SCENES ON HIS SHOWS AND FAMILY FARM OUR GARDEN POND IS A WILDLIFE HAVEN
Matt and family built this lovely pond by hand – and wildlife has flocked to it
We’d always wanted to put a pond in our garden and this year we had the time and opportunity to do it. As a family, we researched all the elements that make the best wildlife ponds so we could try and incorporate as many of them as we could.
I don’t have a lot of pond experience, so I was keen to learn. The last pond that I helped to put in was in the garden of Number 10 Downing Street many years ago, so I figured if my pond-building skills were good enough for the Prime Minister, they must be okay for our patch.
We dug ‘shelf’ areas to create different depths for different species and levels of planting, making sure that there was a sloping edge so that any wildlife unlucky enough to fall in could get out again. This became a gravelled beach area, along with a few other beach pockets between large stones that we found around the garden. To make a grassy bank transition zone we dug rich turf from the orchard with a diverse range of grasses and flowers for a lovely habitat. Selecting specific plants has created more habitat areas and we tried to make sure we put in British native species, so chose marsh marigolds, water forget-me-nots and a native white water lily. As an added extra, we made a bee- and butterfly-friendly flower bed at one side and sowed wildflower seeds for extra impact. We filled the pond with rainwater collected in a paddling pool over winter, hoping it would allow wildlife to move in more quickly than filling it from the garden tap.