Wildlife Gardening
The water garden
Water is an essential element of any garden, bringing life, sound, light and tranquillity to any setting. But wildlife gardeners can’t take water for granted and this precious substance needs to be handled with care.
As spring turns to summer, the presence of a pond in your garden brings
added wildlife pleasures - the plop of lazy frogs, a hovering damselfly,
a skating water boatman, birds dipping down to drink - but don’t
be tempted to build a new pond just yet. Early spring is the best time
to do this to give your pond a chance to settle into the growing season
and attract wildlife. We’ll tell you more about pond-building later
this summer so you can plan ahead. Instead, why not create a temporary
summertime pond. A small tub or pot of open water - wide and shallow
rather than deep and narrow - is enough for birds to bathe in and insects
to drink from. Buy some established plants and make sure that some of
them provide oxygen. Curled pond weed, water milfoil and willow moss are
good oxygenaters. Don’t overcrowd the pot - make sure the
water still glimmers and reflects the sky, so that animals can find and
use your pond.
Another feature for your water garden is a sink marsh, which can be made
out of an old bathroom sink. Seal the plug hole with stop end, which you
can buy from a plumbers’ merchant, and literally sink the sink into
a hole in the ground.
Half fill it with tightly packed waste rubble, broken paving or stones.
Fill the top half with soil and plant it up with marginal marsh plants
such as water mint, ragged robin, meadowsweet and yellow flag iris. Water
well to create a permanent wet marsh and then only top up the water in
dry periods.
Water wise gardening
Now is the time to install a water butt which will catch the rainwater
from your roof. You can use this pure water for your plants and to top
up the summer pond. It’s much better than chlorinated tap water
and it also means you are taking less water from our rivers and underground
sources, aquifers.
Use garden water wisely
- Only water plants in periods of drought - over-watering encourages shallow root growth and weakens a plant’s resistance to dry periods
- Water when it is cooler, during early morning or evening and do not water when it is windy. This will reduce evaporation and waste water.
- Use mulches to retain moisture - finely chipped bark or cocoa shells are attractive mulches
- Use dish and bath water to water plants in hot spells
- Resist watering lawns in dry spells - your grass will recover when the rains return
- Let your lawn grow longer as it will trap dew and reduce evaporation from the soil
- Leave lawn clippings as a mulch to retain water
- Use large containers for patio plants as these retain more moisture than small pots and top with mulch. Grouping smaller pots together will also reduce the rate at which water is lots.
- Use a watering can, not the hose, as less water will be wasted
Did you know?
Leaving a sprinkler on for an hour can use the same amount of water as
a family of four uses in two days.
 |
water primrose • The Centre
for Ecology & Hydrology |
| Articles in this series |
| Making
room for wildlife A year in the wildlife garden |
| The
wildflower garden Go chemical free! |
| The
water garden Help us eradicate pond pests |
| The
night garden Midsummer magic |
| Weeds
of mass domination American connections |
| Love
your creepy-crawlies Home sweet home |
| Childs
play Treasure trove |
| Eternal
sunshine of the wildlife garden Devils darning needles |
| The
bare necessity For peats sake |
If you are lucky enough to have a garden pond you’ll know that it
is a haven for wildlife and a spot where plant species can’t help
thriving - but there are a few pond pests around, and a recent campaign
to tackle this issue has been launched by the Wildlife Trusts and the
Environment Agency.
Pond pests are exotic plants that escape from garden ponds into the wild
where they can do serious damage, choking our rivers, ponds, lakes and
waterways, and damaging our native wildlife. They’re often sold
in local nurseries and aquarium centres. Once in your garden it’s
impossible to prevent their spread into the wider environment. Visiting
garden birds, for example, only have to pick up small fragments of these
plants on their feet to transmit them to other areas.
Once released into the wild, these species cause havoc. They grow rapidly,
blocking out and shading the riverbed, taking over from native plants
species, killing life on waterway beds and clogging up water treatment
works.
They spread particularly quickly due to the dynamic and inter-connective
nature of rivers and waterways. So once in the wild they can cover whole
areas of water in a matter of months and are extremely hard to eradicate,
requiring applications of herbicide or expensive mechanical removal and
causing millions of pounds worth of damage.
Problem plant species include Australian swamp stonecrop (Crassula helmsii),
water fern (Azolla filiculoides), floating pennywort, (Hydroctyle ranunculoides),
parrot’s feather (Myriophyllum aquaticum), curly waterweed (Lagarosiphon
major) and water primrose (Ludwigia grandiflora).
If you see these plants on sale PLEASE DO NOT BUY THEM - alert the
store manager to the problems they cause. If you have these plants in
your garden and need to dispose of them DO NOT PUT THEM DOWN THE DRAIN
OR IN THE RUBBISH - instead compost, burn or bury them. Use alternative
oxygenates such as spiked water milfoil, rigid hornwort or common water
starwort.
Find out more and sign our online petition and pledge to 'prevent pond
pests’ by visiting www.wildlifetrusts.org
