The Benefits of Pond Building

The Benefits of Wildlife Ponds

According to aquaculture scientist Greg Lutz, a well managed pond can increase property values from 5% to 15%.

Pond building is one of the best things we can do for the environment (if done properly).

Ponds provide the 3 basic necessities for life: food, shelter, and water.

All kinds of wildlife will come to feast upon abundant aquatic plants and fish.  Some animals like toads hibernate at the bottom of ponds and many more like dragonflies lay their eggs in ponds.  Ducks will come to eat the weeds and many more will come just to drink.  A pond benefits all life because all life needs water.

Here is a video of our first wildlife pond build:

The Benefits of Clay Ponds

Most top soils are highly permeable and won’t be able to hold any water.  If there isn’t enough clay in the soil, you can seal the pond with a plastic liner.  This creates a more isolated environment. However, it can still be a source of water for animals and plants planted directly in the pond.

If there is a high enough concentration of clay on your pond site, you can use it to build a pond more naturally which provides many more benefits to the ecosystem.

When a clay pond stores a large amount of water, the weight of the water creates great pressure on the soil allowing the water to slowly percolate deep into the soil, making for higher water concentrations in nearby lands lower than the pond.

It is important to choose a high location for your pond site so that it can provide these benefits to the surrounding lands.  However, don’t pick the top of the hill or your pond will have no water runoff to fill it up.

Placing multiple ponds at different elevations throughout a given water basin allows the ponds to feed into each other and thoroughly saturate the surrounding soils.

Wet lands means better vegetation growth.  Better vegetation growth means more food for us and for the wildlife.  More wildlife coming to graze and drink means more fertilizer, a better ecosystem, and even better vegetation growth.

Clay pond building creates a growth cycle that encourages nature to do all the work of sustaining life for us.

Pond Building Service in Ontario

For quotes on wildlife pond design and building, send an email to scott@carrollpropertyservices.ca or hit the green button in the corner (mobile users only) to give me call. Now booking for summer 2022.

Let me know in the comments below what your favorite pond plant is. Mine is Hornwort!

Thanks for reading!

-Scott