Frogs

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fimm

Veteran
Location
Edinburgh
My parents built a pond because they thought it would be nice. Someone gave them some frog spawn & they stuck it in the pond and have had frogs ever since. I don't think you need to do anything specifically for the frogs, but you should just read up a bit on garden ponds (your school pond website sounds good) and how to look after them. I'm slightly concerned that you say the pond is "...under a ... bush ..." because you risk getting it filled up with leaves and stuff from the bush. My parents put netting over theirs in the autumn to keep the leaves out as much as possible. Every so often (once a year, I guess) they'd give it a good clear out - I remember one time there being a huge pile of about 20 or 30 frogs that had come out of the pond as they'd drained and cleaned it.
 

Blue

Squire
Location
N Ireland
Since moving all the mouldy detritus that out swap partner left in the back garden, we have discovered that we have 3 frogs in our garden.
We've dug them a small pond and are just back from the aquatics place with a 2m x 2m pond liner (and a really small all weather dog coat for the pup) and are just about to put the liner in place, as per the instructions of the schools pond project website.
We've noticed that the frogs are hiding out in a dug out area that was under the old mattress and wondered if we used an old terracotta plantpot, semi submerged in the earth, near the new pond, would that make a nice home for them. Pond is under a bloomin' great Buddlea bush and by a 6' fence so nice and protected on 2 sides.

Plant pot home OK for frogs do you think or is there something better for them. Never had a frog pond before and the interweb is curiously quiet about frog housing.
My understanding is that frogs don't live, but do breed, in water. In a former garden of mine I had a wilderness corner with reeds that was always just a bit waterlogged and we had frogs living there.
 

London Female

Über Member
Since moving all the mouldy detritus that out swap partner left in the back garden, we have discovered that we have 3 frogs in our garden.
We've dug them a small pond and are just back from the aquatics place with a 2m x 2m pond liner (and a really small all weather dog coat for the pup) and are just about to put the liner in place, as per the instructions of the schools pond project website.
We've noticed that the frogs are hiding out in a dug out area that was under the old mattress and wondered if we used an old terracotta plantpot, semi submerged in the earth, near the new pond, would that make a nice home for them. Pond is under a bloomin' great Buddlea bush and by a 6' fence so nice and protected on 2 sides.

Plant pot home OK for frogs do you think or is there something better for them. Never had a frog pond before and the interweb is curiously quiet about frog housing.

There seem to be lots of frogs about, I started doing the couch to 5k programme and this week trod on a frog on my run....splat xx(
 

raleighnut

Legendary Member
+1
My understanding is that frogs don't live, but do breed, in water. In a former garden of mine I had a wilderness corner with reeds that was always just a bit waterlogged and we had frogs living there.
+1 they need a boggy area to live in with a dry (frost free) hillock with good cover to survive, Or a pond 4" deep by 20" diameter so it can't freeze through in winter.
Best idea is to put a few logs up a corner cover that with sticks/twigs then pile leaves over the top and leave em to it. You may help them overwinter or they might be dinner for a hedgehog but the cover/moisture is what they need.
 

the_mikey

Legendary Member
Since moving all the mouldy detritus that out swap partner left in the back garden, we have discovered that we have 3 frogs in our garden.
We've dug them a small pond and are just back from the aquatics place with a 2m x 2m pond liner (and a really small all weather dog coat for the pup) and are just about to put the liner in place, as per the instructions of the schools pond project website.
We've noticed that the frogs are hiding out in a dug out area that was under the old mattress and wondered if we used an old terracotta plantpot, semi submerged in the earth, near the new pond, would that make a nice home for them. Pond is under a bloomin' great Buddlea bush and by a 6' fence so nice and protected on 2 sides.

Plant pot home OK for frogs do you think or is there something better for them. Never had a frog pond before and the interweb is curiously quiet about frog housing.


I have frogs in my garden, they seem to like to hide under the leaves in the bottom of the garden as well as the mud in the bottom of the pond. They come out to feast on slugs, worms and snails among other things. They tend to be less active during the winter.
 
OP
OP
Saluki

Saluki

World class procrastinator
Pond is now dug, liner in and it now has a bit of water in there too. We haven't got stones in there yet, to bank up one side although we have one slopey side, as per the ponds for schools website. We've 'planted' a terracotta pot side on and Hubster is putting some sticks and leaves over it now as when we move the mattress tomorrow, the frogs will be homeless. Tomorrow we shall stick stones or something around the edges, to pretty it up a bit. Pond is about 1.5m x 1.2m and about .5m deep. This is the website that the schools site led us too. Nice and simple.
The man in the aquatics shop tried to complicate matters by going on about the liner needing to be this measurement, that measurement and the other measurement and pointing at the really expensive pond lining stuff. We found - in the bargain bucket - a 2m x 2m pond liner for a tenner. He went on and on about filtration systems, pumps, introducing plants and pointing us that the expensive end but we just wanted a liner today so that's all we got. I think that man was a bit miffed. When he started banging on about Koi, we politely declined any further advice and said that we were not in the market for big goldfish. We just wanted a little habitat for the frogs in our garden. He huffed off muttering 'pah, frogs' as we are obviously not the right sort of people for him to serve:laugh:

The buddleia is mostly leaf free now as I've hacked it back quite viciously so that I could get to the back of the detritus pile. I doubt that I've killed it as killing a buddleia plant is neigh on impossible. The buddleia website says to do it in March but I couldn't wait for March to get at the rubbish. The rats were quite bad enough as it was. Our mad downstairs neighbour at the last flat, hacked hers back in October, to about a foot high, and all hers were fine. The plant has 2 choices anyway. Live or die.

I will try and remember to take a piccy tomorrow of our half finished pond ^_^ We are really chuffed with it.
 

Sara_H

Guru
Not long after I started seeing my OH I was driving to his house one evening when I came across a hand made road sign that said "caution - frogs mating", which I thought a bit odd.
A few hundred yards along the road, I drove into a frog orgy, literally hundreds of frogs going at it. It's an annual event on that road apparently.
 

theclaud

Openly Marxist
Location
Swansea
Not long after I started seeing my OH I was driving to his house one evening when I came across a hand made road sign that said "caution - frogs mating", which I thought a bit odd.
A few hundred yards along the road, I drove into a frog orgy, literally hundreds of frogs going at it. It's an annual event on that road apparently.
There's often some hot frog action on the Whitstable FNRttC.
 

coffeejo

Ælfrēd
Location
West Somerset
[QUOTE 3358083, member: 9609"]They seem to love the rain, especially at night, when it's raining I go out with the torch and there is always a few sitting out in the open getting even wetter - I would love to know why they do this.[/QUOTE]I seem to remember reading somewhere that frogs don't drink water so have to rehydrate by absorbing moisture through their skin, one of the many links between them and their water-dwelling ancestors.
 

theclaud

Openly Marxist
Location
Swansea
I'll ask the web-footed @threebikesmcginty if he does that, but I fancy he hydrates through copious amounts of Hook Norton which might blow your theory, ahem, out of the water, Jo:smile:
beer-vacation.jpg
 

fimm

Veteran
Location
Edinburgh
[QUOTE 3357718, member: 259"]What, dead frogs, or just stunned? :ohmy:[/QUOTE]
No, live frogs, just a bit surprised at their pond going AWOL
 
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