Ways To Support Frogs And Newts In Your Pond This Spring

You may have noticed the first signs of spring in your garden, as the days slowly lengthen and the green shoots of snowdrops and crocuses begin to appear in the borders. If you are fortunate enough to have a pond, then you may have already spotted a few amphibians making their way into your garden as they prepare to breed.

During the winter months, frogs and other amphibians such as toads and newts take refuge on land, hibernating under log piles, compost heaps, or in disused animal burrows to protect themselves from the worst of the cold weather. Sometimes they may hibernate just a short distance from their ancestral pond, but they can travel up to three miles away.

From the end of February when the average nighttime temperatures start to rise, amphibians begin to make their way to ponds and other water bodies to begin the breeding season. Male frogs travel first, and you may hear them croaking to attract females. Here’s what you can do to prepare your pond and make sure they have the best chance of success. 

Cut back winter overgrowth and clear debris

If the edges of your pond have become overgrown with grasses or decaying vegetation, cut it back to allow easier access to the water, and to expose more of the pond’s surface to sunlight. This will help the pond plants that are just at the beginning of their growth cycle to photosynthesise and oxygenate the water.

Make sure you have some submerged pond plants

Water with a good balance of oxygen is essential for plants and aquatic creatures to survive. Too much or too little oxygen is harmful and can lead to stagnant water that is not capable of supporting any living organisms. 

It’s important to include some submerged oxygenating plants in your pond, such as Hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum), which will float freely without requiring any basket. Other good oxygenating plants include Water starwort and Willow moss. Aim to include two bunches or portions per square metre of the surface area of your pond.

Early spring is an ideal time to add plants to your pond, because it gives them time to get established before the growing season begins in earnest during late spring and early summer. 

Add pond plants for shelter and support

Newts lay their eggs on the leaves of rafting plants with folding leaves such as Water forget-me-not and Brooklime. These are marginal plants that can be planted in mesh baskets on the shelves around the edges of the pond, at depths of approximately 5cms. 

As well as encouraging newts to breed in your pond, they produce small blue flowers between May and July that will attract bees, butterflies, and other insects. Rafting plants (plants with long stems that grow over the surface of the water) in the shallower areas of your pond also help frogs to breed and survive. 

This is because the male frog will grip a female from above during the mating process, and they may stay in this position for several days, placing the female at risk of suffocation or drowning. Therefore marginal plants in the shallower areas of the pond can provide vital support. 

When the mating is complete and the temperature is warm enough, the female will produce a clump of frogspawn in the shallow areas of the pond, which will float on the surface. Do not attempt to move the spawn or transfer spawn to your pond from other sites, because this carries the risk of transferring diseases and invasive pond plants. 

Only a handful of the thousands of eggs that are spawned will make it all the way to becoming adult frogs. Spawn and tadpoles have natural predators including fish, so if possible do not add fish to your pond, or build a separate fish pond. 

Newts, beetles, birds, dragonfly larvae, and small mammals will also eat spawn or tadpoles. This is all part of the food chain and you shouldn’t actively interfere with it, but include plenty of shelter and hiding places for tadpoles such as rocks and surface and submerged plants.

Tadpoles will feed on algae that grows naturally on plant matter and rocks in a healthy pond. Gradually the tadpoles will develop legs and gills as they turn into froglets and prepare to leave the pond later in the summer. Ensure that they have a means to exit the pond with plenty of marginal and surface plants.