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My Wild Pond Meg Amsden
My friend Rachael at the Broads Authority says nature conservation in the UK is "wildlife gardening". My pond is a small attempt to do the same thing, though due to the sandy nature of our soil, the pond itself is artificial since the mighty hole Crispin dug out of the lawn in May last year had to be lined with butyl to stop the water draining away. We filled it with well-water and the day it was finished we found a newt peering over the edge, speculatively. . . The pond has a deep end, a medium-depth ledge, and a shallow end that slopes up to grass-level, creating a bog-garden for marginal plants. Friends and relatives provided all the plants from their ponds. I asked for native species, but a few suspiciously stripey-leaved rushes slipped in too. Larger plants had their roots tied up in rough hessian bags, weighted with stones. Pond creatures arrived in the mud around their roots - most visibly water-boatmen and diving beetles. Brilliant turquoise-blue damsel-flies instantly appeared from another part of the garden, flitting round the plants and resting on their stems. Within days, the plants began to grow and flower; water plantain with tiny three-petalled lilac flowers; some kind of sedge with furry brown tassels; water-hawthorn, white with pink and yellow dots, curiously resembling hawthorn blossom; gypsy-wort with nettle-like leaves and minute white florets (must be good for healing something by its name. I wonder what the gypsies used it for?).
I was writing a play at the time about a rare form of alga - a charaphyte or stonewort - that is only found in one Norfolk broad. Nick the nature-warden gave me some of its more common cousins from a turf-pond nearby and it has kept the water clear of algal blooms ever since (the plant's greatest virtue), and proliferated wildly over the whole pond (its greatest vice). Duckweed and slimy blanket-weed introduced themselves and have to be cleared regularly to prevent clogging of open water. Brooklime, water-mint, and water-speedwell have all flowered this year, as has a delicious lavender-blue mimulus (the only non-native plant I am keeping as the colour is so exquisite). A vigorous water-buttercup has been trying to take over. I don't remember planting it and it doesn't seem to have flowered or have anything else to recommend it so I've been trying to weed it out. Adult newts from the garden entered the pond in spring to mate. We never saw any spawn but later in the summer dozens of tiny newtpoles appeared and have gradually grown larger. They still don't look big enough to leave the pond when the water cools down in autumn, but they'll have to if they are going to survive (lurking under stones) till next spring. Last week I saw a long dark ribbon of a leech, and a small larva - perhaps one of last year's damselfly brood. The damsels have been flying and mating over the pond again - mainly blue ones, but the mating pairs all seem to be one blue, one green. Why have I never seen green ones on their own? They've been joined this year by larger vivid red darters - small dragonflies. The king-cup Suzanne gave me last year flowered in March with a mass of gleaming golden blooms. The sad little purple loosestrife I moved last summer from a dank flowerbed to the bog-garden, has transformed beyond belief. It has grown to about 8 feet tall, with dozens of purple flowers spikes that lasted from June to August. An old broadsman told me it got its name from the practice of tying bundles of the plants between horses and donkeys when they were pulling carts in tandem, to prevent them fighting. Apart from the water hawthorn, which has barely flowered this year, everything I have planted has grown at an astonishing rate, sending out roots and suckers, seeding new plants. I shall soon have to separate, divide and cut them back or there will be no room in the pond for water, newts or mini-beasts. It will turn into a bog-garden, and then eventually damp land - an inevitable case of natural succession. Like the conservationists of the broads, I must vigilantly apply my wildlife-gardening skills if the open water is to remain. Where else in the garden could I see the moon reflected, as tiny creatures scurry down below? It's the most soothing place to sit and think and dream, constantly changing and developing. The trouble with ponds is that one just isn't enough. Where do I put all the plant's I've weeded and divided out, for a start. The compost heap seems a sad end for all that growth and exuberance. And wouldn't it be nice to have a bigger, deeper pond to grow water-lilies in, and then link the ponds with a bridge and . . .
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