Gardening Workshop: How to Create a No Fuss Wildlife Pond with Pat Sutton – Copy

Frogs, toads, and dragonflies all need freshwater ponds for egg laying to create future generations. Even a tiny pond will attract and support them. Learn what a true wildlife pond is and how simple it is to create – with no need for running water, filters, fish, and all the fuss. Pat Sutton will share the basics of how to create a wildlife pond and, even more importantly, how to maintain it so that wildlife benefits. Learn which native plants to add to the pond (and which problem plants to avoid), and don’t be surprised if Sutton offers to share native plants from her very own ponds. Don’t make the same mistake that others have made by creating a pond for exotic fish that supports little else. In a true wildlife pond, expect to attract and get to watch the amazing life cycle of huge Green Darner dragonflies or count a growing population of Leopard Frogs and Green Frogs that find your pond as if by magic. Create it and they will come!

Pat Sutton, as Naturalist and Program Director with the Cape May Bird Observatory, researched and wrote the NJ Audubon Society booklet “Backyard Habitat For Birds, a Guide for Landowners & Communities in New Jersey.” You can download NJ Audubon articles by Pat Sutton: “How to Create a Butterfly & Hummingbird Garden,” & “Recommended Plantings to Attract Hummingbirds, Butterflies, and Moths.”