Garden Machinery
Garden Leisure
- Greenhouse Heaters
- Loungers
- Midgeaters
- Gas Barbecues
- Charcoal Barbecues
- Masonry Barbecues
- Furniture Sets
- Benches
- Greenhouses
- Water and Light
- Garden Sheds
- Gazebos
- Firepits
- Wildlife Boxes
- Rock and Stone
- Weather Vanes
- Rabbit Hutches
- Urns & Planters
- Sundials
- Birdbaths
- Garden Swings
- Climbing Frames
- Croquet Sets
- Wildlife Cameras
- Bird Feed
Water feature - selecting and introducing amphibians
The common frog may arrive without any planning on your part - nobody is entirely sure how this happens in all cases, sometimes young frogs migrate, and sometimes it may be that frogspawn which birds pick up to carry to their nests to eat, falls out of their beaks and if it lands in water, continues to produce tadpoles. An ancient belief had it that herons would carry frogs from old ponds to new ponds to increase their stock of food, but as we now know that herons will wipe all the frogs and fish out of a pond, I think we can accept that it's simply a charming legend.
However, if you can't wait for that to happen, several specialist garden centres now supply native frogs, and frogspawn, for sale. Alternatively you might find a neighbour has a pond well stocked with frogs and would be willing to let you have a jar of frogspawn in the spring.
Toads are a different matter. The common toad, bufo bufo, can be purchased from specialist amphibian suppliers and crawls rather than hops. It lives on a diet of slugs and insects which makes it a very desirable garden inhabitant, but you will need at least one male and one female, of course, and while many people think toads live in water, they don't - they like to live in cracks and crevices between rocks, near water, which is why people used to believe toads could live entombed in rock, many of them having been found trapped in such rocks in the past when people were quarrying for stone to build houses.
