Frogspawn

[lizwizz]

I have a new garden pond, at the moment with no plants in it. Do I need to put frogspawn in it or will frogs find the pond? Also if I do have frogspawn and no plants, will the newly hatched frogs have anything to eat? I'm planning to put plants in in May when they are more available from garden centres.

[doomey!]

why would you want frogs?

[WendyS]

Of course she would want frogs! Half the fun of having a pond is to enjoy all the wildlife which lives in it!

Liz, your pond will need to establish itself for a few weeks to get rid of chlorine from the tapwater used to fill it. You may be a little late to attract mating frogs as my first frogspawn appeared 3 weeks ago. When the tadpoles hatch from the dissolving frogspawn they feed on the green algae which develops around the pond and other little microbes. If your fence has gaps frogs will appear from other gardens during the summer and they usually come back to the same pond to spawn. (Our frogs migrated from next door's pond and now return every year). If you can find somebody to give you some frogspawn,put the plants in as soon as possible. Meanwhile, once the frogspawn has dissolved, lettuce leaves boiled until they are soft for about 5 or 6 minutes (Soft Roundhead & Little Gem varieties are best) will give the baby tadpoles something to feed on until the green algae builds up. You may find them sucking on this at the pond edge. The tadpoles slowly start losing their tails around the end of June by which time they will be tiny froglets about the size of your finger nail. Be sure to give them some means of escaping from the pond at this point otherwise they will die of exhaustion as they need to migrate to the land to find worms and other insects to feed on. And from the end of June, check your lawn very carefully for baby froglets, before mowing. I didn't do this the first year my tadpoles turned into frogs and sadly mowed some them down before I'd realised they were there. Good luck! Hope you get lots of pleasure from your new pond. You may even find newts migrating into it as I did.

[lizwizz]

Thanks Wendy. My pond has a little 'beach' area at one end with stones so anything which falls in can get out.

[WendyS]

Oh, and I should have mentioned another nasty trick of nature. When the baby frogs start migrating from the pond to the rest of your garden, especially on the lawn, watch out for the magpies ! Once they catch on, they'll be flying down for their tasty snacks ! I read somewhere that out of one batch of frogspawn with over 1000 egg, only about ten baby frogs actually succeed in surviving to the age of one year. One of the secrets is to have lots of low leafy plants in the garden where they can take shelter from predators (and hot sun) at this vulnerable stage of their lives.

[lizwizz]

Doomey, I want frogs to eat the slugs that eat my plants. Anyway I like them.