Your vegetable patch can be a lovely oasis with food, views and even the occasional wildlife spotting, and one gardening expert shows us how to create a cute barrel pond in your own backyard.
Jamie Walton (@nettlesandpetals) is a master gardener who shares tips for creating lush, productive, and sustainable gardens. In one clip, he shows his followers how he transformed a less-loved part of his garden into a beautiful wildlife pond.
He started by clearing the site of debris and digging a hole big enough to fit a large half barrel, then added some stones to the barrel's rim “to provide some hiding place and access for wildlife to get into the pond,” and added wood chips and new plants around what would soon be a little oasis.
Jamie then poured rainwater that he had collected in a water tank into the barrel, preferring it because “tap water has additives like chlorine that can be bad for the pond.”
To create a wildlife-friendly pond, he added some aquatic plants, using native plants and plants that oxygenate the water. Finally, he added some rocks for animals to perch on and some decorative details. “And within just a few days, the pond was hosting its first visitors.” His first visitors were his new neighbors, frogs.
Features such as small wildlife-friendly ponds are a great way to make your garden more beneficial to the local ecosystem. Changing your home to make it more environmentally friendly is often called rewilding, and not only is it good for the environment, it can also cut down on lawn care and water bills.
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According to our guide to rewilding, “Even if you spend $1,000 on landscaping materials like native plants and mulch, you'll benefit in the long run by saving $275 a year on water, $50 on fertilizer, and $50 on pesticides and weed control.”
Home gardeners in the comments section were enthralled by the transformation, with one person saying: “I love this! I want to create something like this in my garden. Thanks for sharing.”
Another wrote: “What a beautiful change.”
Another viewer commented: “I've always wanted to do something similar but never really knew how or where to start but you've really inspired me and I'm so grateful for your guide.”
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