Create a mini pond

Wildlife attraction

Even a small water feature can be a focal point for wildlife. Insects and maybe frogs and toads will find your pond by themselves so there is no need to stock the pond from another source which risks spreading disease.

You can use virtually any watertight container for your mini pond. Old enamel sinks and stone troughs work well or choose a glazed ceramic plant pot with no hole.

What to do

Step-by-step

• Fill your chosen container with rainwater. If you must use tap water, leave this to stand for a couple of days to neutralise.
• Select your plants. Choose a combination of marginals, aquatics and oxygenators. See our list below for the ideal combination.
• Plant the marginals in aquatic baskets lined with hessian and filled with garden soil. Top dress with gravel. To get the right height for the marginal plants, use an upturned aquatic basket. You can also use bricks. Place the planted basket on top.
• Place the water lily in its basket on the bottom of the pond and the leaves will grow and float to the surface.
• Drop the water soldier, Stratiotes, which will act as an oxygenator, into the water and it will float to the surface.
• Consider adding a ramp or piling stones at one edge of your container so that if an animal falls in it can get out again and won't drown.

Once the pond is set up, it's easy to look after. The plants will help to keep the water crystal clear, because their leaves shade out the light that causes green algae to grow. In fact, apart from an annual clean up, you'll find there's surprisingly little else that needs doing.

Aftercare

• Spring - take each plant out of its container and cut it back to a more manageable size. Oxygenators tend to grow faster than other plants, so you may need to cut them back more often.
• Summer - when the plants are growing in the summer, an occasional tidy up to remove any yellowing leaves and spent flower-heads is useful.
• Autumn - it's a good idea to cover your mini pond with some netting during the autumn to prevent it from filling up with fallen leaves and other debris.
• Winter - you may have to protect your pond in periods of very cold weather to stop it freezing solid.

Five plants to try

• Equisetum ramosissimum var. japonicum - an attractive, clump-forming evergreen, reed-like plant which looks like an aquatic bamboo.
• Equisetum scirpoides - another clump-forming plant with green, banded grass-like stems
• Pontederia cordata - pickerel weed - swamp-loving plant with tight spikes of blue flowers
• Nymphaea odorata var. minor - dwarf water lily - gleaming white fragrant flowers, from May to mid-autumn. Just one will be enough for this size pond
• Stratiotes aloides - water soldier - rosette-forming perennial with pointed leaves and white flowers summer