Clean Wildlife Pond?

[motnworb]

I have a very small pond in my garden that was built solely for wildlife. The plants (all native) have done superbly well and are now pretty much a mass tangled web covering the whole surface (wild watercress and milfoil mostly). Should I try and trim it back or is the denser the better for this kind of pond?

There are no fish, but we have got frogs and tadpoles.

I would think just to leave it, but it really is a small water feature, smaller than a bath and it is very densely covered now.

If I should manage the plants a bit, when is the best time to do so? Or will they sort themselves out after a time?

[AshLee]

No, I don't think they'll sort themselves out. They will just get a lot denser, and before you know it, you won't have a pond at all.

Normally I wait until everythig has bred and the little ones are all grown up, as it were. The timing will depend on your area, the animals you have in the pond etc. Autumn should be fine. But you can probably do a bit of careful light trimming at anytime of year to preserve some open water and get some sunlight in. Leave the trimmings on the edge of the pond for a day or so. Later in the year you can be a lot more drastic.

This is how I manage my smaller pond. Boy those pond plants grow fast, don't they!

[Littlesparrow]

If I need to remove any pond plants I do it in the autumn. Sometimes there are some frogs in the plant roots,so I put the plants on the grass for a while to give the frogs a chance to hop off. This time of year I just skim off any surface weeds that are growing too fast,either with my hands or a twig. Watch out you don't scoop up and tadpoles.

[Susie]

My pond gets horribly over grown and now I have to trim the unwanted growth back every six weeks or so. As said above, it is best to leave anything you cut back by the water's edge to give any water critters a chance to get back into the pond before removing the plant waste.