Jeffrey J. Jackson
University of Georgia
August 1997
Every wildlife garden has room for a backyard frog pond.
Six kinds of frogs have found my little mini ponds that
I made especially for them. I like seeing them and hearing
their calls at night.
It's easy to make a little pond for frogs. Just dig a shallow
hole and line it with plastic. Then fill with water. There
are special pond liners that last for years, or you can
use heavy black builders plastic. It's cheap. If it develops
a leak, just install a new piece on top of the old. You
can make the pond any size. My frogs inhabit little ponds
with only one or two square yards of water. The pond can
be any depth 10 to 20 inches deep works well.
The edges of the pond are very important. Edges should
taper gradually from shallow to deep so that a little animal
like a frog can easily climb out. You want your pond for
volunteers not prisoners! I've seen plenty of expensive
concrete ponds with overhanging edges. These are what I
call "death trap" ponds. Little animals can fall
in, but they can never leave. Small mammals falling into
such ponds will drown.
You don't need to tend the vegetation bordering the pond.
Let it grow wild and weedy. Let the vegetation hang over
the water. This makes it easy for the frogs to hide and
forage out into the surrounding vegetation. Place slabs
of bark or boards nearby. Prop them up about two inches
on one side to make a hiding place underneath. Put a little
log in the pond so the frogs can climb out and bask.
Add aquatic weeds to suit your taste. I like arrow head,
arrow arum, pickerel weed, cattails and sedges. You can
plant them in pots or in mud on the bottom. Even more important
than the weeds are several handfuls of dead leaves. Put
the leaves in the water and let them sink. This simulates
a natural bottom. While some people don't like the looks
of a pond with a natural looking mucky leafy layer on the
bottom, the frogs love it. When they jump in to escape an
enemy, they squirm under the leaves and get out of sight.
Frogs may avoid a clean pond with no cover.
In fall add more leaves. This keeps the depths warmer.
A clean pond gets much colder on the bottom than one with
layers of dead leaves. This allows the frogs to overwinter
in relative comfort.
Do you ever clean a frog pond? Its not necessary. You can
remove bottom muck at times if the pond gets too thick with
detritus. Occasionally you can start over with a complete
cleaning. If you have two ponds, you can clean one and leave
the other full of mess. That way the frogs have someplace
to go while the clean pond recovers. Keep the water level
up. If you forget your pond, it may dry up. You can connect
a pipe to a downspout so when it rains the runoff fills
the pond automatically.
Frogs, toads, and especially their tadpoles are very vulnerable
to some chemicals so be ultra careful with pesticides. Early
this spring, my sister had a big washtub full of thriving
tadpoles at the edge of her yard. One day the neighbors
lawn care company sprayed their yard. They didn't know the
washtub and the tadpoles were there. The next day they were
all dead. What about mosquitoes? Will they come to your
pond? Maybe. Mosquito larvae are often more abundant in
new water. Often an older environment full of a variety
of insect predators helps keep their numbers down. Try a
little pond. If you think the mosquitoes are too abundant
you can always take it out. Or you can add mosquito fish
to eat them.
