A wildlife pond is born

Jane Kelly finally got round to making her own pond in the hope that it would attract a variety of wildlife. And it did!

- Jane Kelly

It's fair to say that over the years I have suffered a fair amount of pond envy. I would watch in awe as ardent gardeners trawled diggers through their land and replaced mud with beautifully adorned 'home-made' lakes. But more than the aesthetics, I was intrigued as to what would come next. The newly-transformed land created a perfect habitat for creatures that might otherwise not have visited. From dragonflies to toads, water voles to the occasional badger - they summed up the perfect landscape I'd imagined from my childhood nature books.

But for us it was not to be. In the past Mike, my husband, has suffered a horrendous reaction to mosquito bites and the last thing he wanted was to be attacked by a buzzing army as he was picking the apples. Then I saw a picture of another water feature. It was no more than an upturned dustbin lid with a few rocks. What made it special, though, was the planting surrounding it. This helped to extend the habitat beyond the circumference of the lid itself into a place where creatures could shelter, feed and even (dare I say) reproduce. Surely that wouldn't hurt...

Two days later a large box arrived at the door. Mike's suspicions were aroused further when I started pacing up and down the allotment staring at underused gaps in the planting. By the time I returned with 'the box' he had his spade in hand and asked where he should start digging.