UPDATE: 20 May 2020 – One night later in May saw five frogs roosting around the pond.
UPDATE: 4 May 2020 – Seen and heard two frogs for quite a few weeks after dark. Possibly two males, however, so no spawn. Mimulus in bloom as of ~1 May and a flag iris about to erupt too. The aquatic snails are thriving, we have dozens and dozens of both kinds now.
UPDATE 30 Jun 2019 – A frog made an appearance. Sat on the gravel pot while I went to get a camera and then promptly hopped back in the water on my return.
It’s almost two months since I dug and refilled our resurrected pond. It has a couple of deep oxygenating plants, some reeds, and a margin plant or two. We’ve seen two or three frogs but also lots of mosquitoes and their swimming larvae. There are diving beetles and whirligigs, and similar in the garden. We see an occasional bird having a drink. It’s new, it’s settling.
The water feature (basically some rocks, a hosepipe and an electric pump in the bottom of the pond) is keeping the pondweed and algae at bay and after several construction attempts makes a nice natural sound now rather than splashing on to the butyl rubber.
Added two new plant species a water lily, Odorate sulphurea, and a Mimulus luteus with the variant name Queen’s Prize. The water lily isn’t much to look at but will hopefully spread its pads and provide summer shade for the submerged amphibia. The Mimulus has lovely blood red and custard yellow flowers. Also, just acquired some Common Water Snails (Limnoea stagnalis) and some Great Ramshorn Snails (Planorbarius corneus) from a friend along with a spiky pond plant, Water Soldier, which are now in place.
The pond surroundings also now have some wildflowers – Red Campion, Foxglove, St John’s Wort, Wild Basil, and others as well as the unkempt and weedy patch of grass behind and plenty of nijer and sunflower seedlings growing from birdfeeder spillage beneath the apple tree. It’s not quite idyllic yet, but it’s getting there…