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I have a largish garden and want a pond desperately! The problem is that the soil is clay after about 9 inches so is really difficult to dig and there is no way that I can dig down two feet. What is the shallowist I could have - I really want to attract newts, In my last garden I had two ponds and loads of newts but they were much deeper. Thanks!
Hi Esbod
There's lots of information on ponds in Water Features in the forum called Homes for Wildlife. You may find some help there.
Cheers
Pipit
I have moved your question into the water features section of the forum, worth looking through the other threads in here as you should find some useful hints!
It is a good idea to have an area of the pond that is deep to provide a refuge for any hibernating amphibians. Persevering with the digging so you have an area of deep water in the middle of the pond will be worth the effort in the long run. Have a look at the link here to the Just Add Water pages on the Froglife website, it has some useful information on digging ponds.
Our Homes for Wildlife pages may also be of interest.
Warden Intern at Otmoor.
hi i have a very small pond approx 6ft by 4ft as i had small children when we built it,i dug the hole sloping one side leaving it very shallow so it almost creates a bog planting area at one end, and the other is approx 2-3ft deep,we put a pond liner in and weighed down the edges with large stones also providing hiding places for the frogs and bought 3 oxygenating plants,popped in some froglets we got from our friends garden pond and put some strawberry netting over until the frogs were big enough to fight off the birds, we fed the frogs on frozen bloodworms from the aquatic pet shop until the local wildlife took over,now there are enough beasties in the water to feed them,the netting was removed allowing the birds and hedgehogs to bathe too. 3 years on the frogs come back from hibernating every year( we discovered in a neighbours shed!!) but they always come back to our wee pond.hope this helps
mrs mac
hi we had lots and lots of frog spaw this year but something appears to be eating them!!! we have a few tadpoles but considering the amount of spawn we expected lots of froglets!! can anyone help?? the ponds were covered with netting so it appears there is something in the water possibly older frogs eating the tadpoles/frglets???
Hi Mandy
It's possible that frogs might eat tadpoles, but newts are maybe more likely to be the culprits. There are plenty of other aquatic predators which might also eat frogspawn - beetles or dragonfly nymphs, perhaps. So it's just as well that frogs lay such huge quantities of spawn! Hopefully a few will make it through.
Katie
The colder temperatures may simply be keeping the tadpoles less active and lower down in the water. Have a look on a warm day, the taddies should be more active then!