Looking after your pond: Spring

For many people, spring is all about the arrival of frogspawn, but there is far more than this going on. Each day there’s new wildlife arriving or new buds sprouting. 

Spring is a fantastic time of year to use a torch to see what’s going on after dark. Throughout the months of spring you could see female newts serenely laying their eggs on the leaves of submerged plants. 

As far as jobs go, spring can see blooms in two particularly fast-growing pondweeds: blanket weed and duckweed. If left unchecked, these can smother ponds and limit growth of other plants. To tackle these problem plants nothing beats hard work. Carefully run a net along the surface to scoop up duckweed, and twist a cane or stick amongst the blanket weed to pull this out. Always leave removed pondweeds to sit next to the pond for a day or two. This will allow animals accidently scooped up to fall back into the pond. Don’t leave pondweeds there for too long though, otherwise their nutrients will fall back into the pond. After a couple of days, add the pondweed to your compost heap.

With thanks to our Corporate Supporter BNP Paribas