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For many people, spring is all about the
arrival of
frogspawn
, but there is far more
than this going on. Each day there’s new
wildlife arriving or new buds sprouting.
Spring is a fantastic time of year to use a
torch to see what’s going on after dark.
Throughout the months of spring you could
see female newts serenely laying their eggs
on the leaves of submerged plants.
As far as jobs go, spring can see blooms in
two particularly
fast-growing pondweeds
:
blanket weed and duckweed.
If left unchecked, these can smother ponds
and limit growth of other plants. To tackle
these problem plants nothing beats hard
work. Carefully run a net along the surface
to scoop up
duckweed
, and twist a cane or
stick amongst the
blanket weed
to pull this
out. Always leave removed pondweeds to sit
next to the pond for a day or two. This will
allow animals accidently scooped up to fall
back into the pond. Don’t leave pondweeds
there for too long though, otherwise their
nutrients will fall back into the pond. After a
couple of days, add the pondweed to your
compost heap.
Like the wider countryside, ponds change with the
seasons. They can go from an icy murky pool in winter to a
colourful wildlife metropolis in summer. As a result, pond
management is a seasonal job.
Spring:
looking after yourwildlife pond
L
wil life pond
Mark Rowe
there’s no such
thing as too much
frogspawn!
Frogs deliberately lay so
much spawn because so little
of it actually survives. If your
pond looks very full, don’t
worry - things will naturally
balance out.
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