MATT BAKER

THE COUNTRYFILE PRESENTER GOES BEHIND THE SCENES ON HIS SHOWS AND FAMILY FARM THE NATURAL GLORIES OF A GARDEN POND

Our pond has burst into life this year – it’s a joyous addition to the garden.

BELOW Adding a pond to a garden offers sanctuary to frogs and a huge range of wildlife

Over the past year or so, there’s one thing I get asked about a lot, and that’s my pond. As some of you may know, at the start of the first lockdown, my family and I put a pond in our back garden. We filmed it and it was broadcast in a Countryfile episode from our garden.

Since then, many people have asked me how the pond is doing and for any advice I may have so that they can put in their own pond. I’m not an expert but as a family we have learnt a lot – from working out the best design and features a pond should have, to how to manage our pond through the seasons.

I have to say, putting the pond in has been one of the best things we have ever done in our garden. It’s now well over a year since it was created and it has been a total wildlife haven. We don’t have any fish or water pumps in it, it’s purely there for the wildlife. It’s a hive of activity for the birds, who all love to have a bath in it and drink from the pebbled beach area. We have had

“Putting the pond in has been one of the best things we have ever done to our garden”

frogs, toads, frogspawn, damselflies, dragonflies, water boatmen, newts, bats, squirrels and foxes, all in and around the pond at some point.

Our most recent surprise visitors were a pair of ducks and we even had a bit of duck drama. A pair of ducks turned up out of the blue one day and stayed around for a couple of weeks. One day, two males were with the female, so there was a bit of argy-bargy going on to win her affections. We were all rooting for the original Mr Duck and I’m happy to say he did indeed triumph in the end. They have stuck around for quite a while now, so are obviously quite happy, although I still haven’t quite got used to the sound of ducks quacking accompanying the cockerel in the morning!

BRIMMING WITH LIFE

We’ve left the pond to grow quite wild around the edges so there are plenty of places for animals to hide and get shade in the summer months – it’s constantly buzzing with insects at the moment. We are delighted by how mature it seems to be already. All the pond plants we put in that had died back over winter have come back brilliantly this spring and summer. The young native lily is doing really well; the leaves are enormous and we’re hoping it will flower. We didn’t get too much trouble with algae in the summer either, the little bit we did get was easily managed by adding barley straw extract to the water.

It has been lovely to watch the new pond develop and change through the seasons in its first year and now that it’s in year two, it’s really flourishing. The final addition was the garden bench that sits by the water’s edge – a lovely setting for a G and T and some quality time with my wife Nicola.