You might have caught a few articles last year published online by some leading newspapers (The Telegraph and the Guardian to name a couple) that ponds aren’t the height of fashion for the modern gardener anymore, but what does that mean for the wildlife we surely still cherish from our childhoods?

Well ultimately it means that numbers of Amphibians are down, Toads by a third and Frogs by 17% since 2014. After birds frogs are the most common visitor to British gardens, but they need help.

Gardeners best friend!

Frogs eat numerous garden pests as part of their daily diet so they should be one of your best friends around the garden. Their diet does have a pretty wide scope as they are very greedy, the list of preferred species includes slugs, snails, ants and spiders. The first two we are all keen to have reduced numbers of in the garden, it’s certainly better having frogs in the garden rather than having to use slug and snail pellets!

So, what do you need to do to get frogs visiting? Well, build a wildlife pond, anything counts really, frogs aren’t picky and are grateful for ponds and pools of pretty much any size, so check out previous blogs on wildlife ponds and our very affordable range of Pond Liners and Preformed Ponds.

Background:

Size: Adults are around 6cm to 9cm

Colouration: Green, olive-green and grey-brown, some have yellow tinges too. There have even been reports of red frogs and also albino ones as well.

Weight: Usually around 30 Grams with the males being slightly smaller

Distribution: Throughout Europe

Unlike the toad frogs are also found in Ireland, it was originally thought that they were introduced, however studies have shown they are a native population.

Habitat: Mainly solitary the frog spends most of its time alone in marshy damp places around a pond. In the United Kingdom they will usually emerge around February to breed however they can remain active all year if the weather is favourable.

It only takes a small area in your garden to help the numbers of our native populations grow, so what are you waiting for?