Make friends with nature – make a mini pond
If you want to encourage more wildlife in your garden, a great way to start is with your very own mini pond.
Even a small water feature can help attract different types of creatures from frogs to toads to insects.
What you’ll need:
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How to make your mini pond:
1. Lay four bricks so that the long ends are facing north to south.
2. Fill the space between the bricks with sand.
3. Put your washing-up bowl on top.
4. Mix sand and soil, and then make a bank up the sunny south-facing short edge. Plant sun loving plants such as thyme. Put in flat stones for sunbathing and leave gaps for mining bees and digger wasps to mine and dig.
5. At the other end, stack up a mixture of soil and old logs.
6. Add small gravel to the bottom of the bowl and build up larger stones so that hedgehogs can escape. Put in a dragonfly perching stick or two. Wedge the bottom of each stick under heavy stones.
7. Add pond plants and bury your potted water plant in pebbles so that the pot is just below the surface. Watch for wildlife and keep your bank flowers watered.
Illustrations by Anthony Rule. Activity taken from RSPB Bird Life magazine.
For more ways on how to give nature a home in your garden and to download your free guide, visit rspb.org.uk/homes
We all know there is a housing crisis in the UK. Perhaps less well-known, however, is that there is an equally urgent housing crisis facing much of the UK’s threatened wildlife.
The worrying state of things for creatures that call our gardens ‘home’ has encouraged Rightmove to lend our support to the RSPB’s new Giving Nature a Home campaign. The objective is simple: to encourage people across the UK to create a million new homes for nature in their gardens and outdoor spaces.
