Backyard Ponds - What You Need To Know About Wildlife Ponds

By Michael Wezsky

The most popular type of outdoor pond is without a doubt a fish pond, with clean waters and filters. The much less common option, requesting a more adventurous spirit, is to build a wildlife outdoor pond.

First let's define what is a wildlife pond. A wildlife pond is a natural environment hosting a self-sustaining ecosystem. A spot in your property backyard where nature has regained full control and you are merely an observer.

Main steps to create a wildlife outdoor pond:

1. Your pond must be located where wildlife has a free and undisturbed access. Best spots are the very edge of your property and close to nature.

2. Follow the building tips described below.

3. Borrow water from an existing wildlife pond, naturally occurring ones are best.

4. Let nature take control.

5. Eventually, the environment will take control and transform your pond into a nice natural bog.

What can you expect? Well, if you take care of the details, you will have an autonomous ecosystem filled with a variety of living creatures and with little need for maintenance at all.

Building a wildlife pond. A wild life pond is built using any informal outdoor pond plans, but your equipment list will be smaller as there is no need for filtration or aeration, nature will take care of this tasks. An important point to add is that fish will destroy your insect population, the basic food for other wildlife animals, so this kind of pond won't host any kind of fish in it.

In terms of pond location, place your pond at the border of your property, where your backyard meets nature. But remember this is a wildlife pond, with insects and toads in it, avoid problems by placing it at a safe distance of your house and your neighbor's property.

Wildlife you want to attract, specially small animals, will need hiding places, so keep the vegetation around your pond a bit high and untidy.

A secret ingredient that will make the difference. Find a naturally occurring wildlife pond, take some water from it and introduce it into your pond. The organisms you got from the natural pond will populate your newly created wildlife pond.

What kind of animals can you expect? The water borrowed from the natural pond will start an insect population. Your first visitors will probably be pond skaters and eventually dragonflies. With insects in place yo will start attracting their predators, toads and birds. If your site won't let easy access to animals you can by some toads and introduce them to your backyard. But if your pond start growing mosquitoes or other undesirable insects you can add snails to keep the water clean.

Wildlife ponds are not a common option for backyard ponds, but if well created it can be a unique addition to your backyard design. - 29857

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