Enjoy the view

Leaping Frog Heaven

A couple of weeks ago John Scott sent me the email below reminding me of my fancy for some slug -eating frogs and telling me all about his new pond residents. I felt that his frogs most definitely deserved a page on my garden blog so asked him if he had a picture of them…..

I’ve been trying to remember to get a shot of our frog pond all week in case you could use this, and I’ve finally managed it today!

John's Frog Pond
As you can see, the pool incorporates two pebbly beaches to allow amphibians to get in and out easily. All their dark, damp des reses are out of view amongst the rocks, and there are 5 frogs all hiding there, somewhere, and one of them is quite a whopper with an enormous slug belly.
 
Looking at this photo, it’s hard to imagine that the pond has only been there for 4 months, and it should look a lot more more lush next year when the young plants are into their first full growing season. Aren’t gardens wonderful?

BTW, can you spot the shy gnome, and the faux frog?

And this was his original email. Read on for the tale of the leaping frogs!

You probably won’t remember this, but you once expressed jealously for the couple of frogs that I mentioned we had in our garden yonks ago. (You had designs on reducing the slugs in your garden, I think!) Well, we had a wildlife pond installed this summer and we discovered that we actually had at least 5, because they all appeared as soon as the pond was filled with water. The books say that frogs aren’t bothered about ponds once they’ve spawned, but ours are all definite pond-lovers and sought out crevices around the edge of the pond in which to doze during the day, when not taking the occasional dip.

(I’d really love to know how they spent their winters prior to the pond appearing, because ours in a quite small (about 30 foot square), completely walled-in garden, and I really can’t imagine where they could have escaped the rigours of that bad winter we had a couple of years ago, but they obviously found somewhere!)As there appeared to be some squabbling going on for the best dark, damp spots, I spent several days constructing froggy des reses with all mod cons around the pond edges so that they would all be able to sit in the dark with their bums in shallow water. It was quite clear that this is their preference!

After this, all went well for a time until I put the pump on one day that feeds a short water course above the pond, and a frog shot out of the end of the pipe into the first small pool! It had obviously decided that the long black plastic “cave” was a great hideaway!

While I tried to work out how to stop it getting into the pipe, while still allowing the pipe to function, another frog joined it so that two of them would come hurtling out every time we switched the pump on! Total idiots, the pair of them – getting thrown onto the cobbles around the little pool every day but then going back into the pipe when the pump was switched off!

These frogs don’t realise how lucky they are! I’ve just bought a special heater to stop the pond freezing, so that the frogs hibernating at the bottom don’t suffocate when the pond gets covered with ice. Hopefully, this lot will all survive and we’ll have hundreds of new froglets next year. The slugs won’t know what’s hit them next summer!