StuartF Posted April 29, 2013 Report Share Posted April 29, 2013 This autumn I plan to build a bog garden that'll double as a froggery, and I was wondering if anyone has tried something similar? I plan to have a pond with a slope going in and out attached to a bog in some way. I haven't really figured out how I'll do it yet, so any thoughts are appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Long Posted April 29, 2013 Report Share Posted April 29, 2013 Hi Stuart I like you idea so I emailed a friend of mine who works with monitoring native amphibians here in the UK, below is his reply. It looks like acidic water would be a problem for just having a pool in the bog, so perhaps using one of those ready made plastic pond structures sat in the middle? Anyways, good luck! Mark Bog garden for carnivorous plants would work well for some amphibians, if a few conditions are met. You would need to have open spaces of water so that they could breed and lay eggs, they would need to be large and deep enough for the amphibians to display and lay eggs. Probably an area 60cm x 30cm x 15cm deep would be minimum I reckon. With the water being acidic you wouldnt really get frogs, smooth newts or great crested newts but you would probably get common toads as they are pretty tolerant. Palmate newts are small and the most acid tolerant amphibian in the UK. In fact, you rarely find them in ponds that arent acidic. They are, however, pretty rare so they are unlikely to naturally colonise unless they are found locally anyway. The key thing for amphibians is that you dont stock the water with fish, as they are the main reason amphibians are not found in most waterbodies. It could be really successful though, but remember that amphibians only use the pond for a couple of months a year, and then rely on the surrounding terrestrial habitat being of sufficient quality to sustain them for the rest of the time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartF Posted April 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2013 Thanks for that, that's pretty helpful. I'll be building it a house by the Harz mountains in north Germany, the underlying geology is mostly limestone, so any water around is pretty alkaline. I should probably try and keep the containers for the froggery and the bog apart, although maybe I'll try two froggeries to see what happens, one acid, one alkaline. There's certainly plenty of toads in the Harz, this time of year in one big amphibian orgy, with great big piles of them in the local ponds! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.