Big little choices

The other day I found myself dithering about covering our garden pond with netting. I hadn’t realized how much transitioning toward sustainable gardening has changed my thinking process.

This week in the garden

    Every fall I drag a lightweight frame made from plastic pipe and covered with bird netting over the 8- by 10-foot rectangular pond. The purpose of the pond cover is to minimize the number of falling leaves that end up in the water. 

The gray plastic pipe holds netting over the pond surface to keep out leaves

If leaves spend the winter on the bottom of the pond, their gradual decomposition will suck the oxygen out of the water, creating tough conditions for any animals living there. We don’t have koi anymore, but I buy five or ten tadpoles at the garden center each spring and enjoy their emergence as tiny froglets.

Tadpoles metamorphose in the course of the summer-photo Olaf Tausch

Adult frogs eat insects. I count them as part of my garden community.

I managed to photograph this frog from a distance before he jumped into the water

     My dilemma this fall was twofold. First, should I try to skim the floating duckweed off the surface of the pond before winter for aesthetic reasons? What if tadpoles were still depending on duckweed for food? What if I skimmed off frog egg masses with the duckweed? If I’d asked to know the scientific name of my tadpoles, I’d be more equipped to find answers to these questions. After a few passes with the net, I decided to leave the duckweed alone.

Duckweed on the pond surface provides high-protein tadpole food, prevents algae build-up by shading the water, and controls mosquito reproduction

    Second, if I covered the pond completely with the netting frame, how were those frogs going to get out of the water? I’d lowered the pots of water lilies to the bottom of the pond, so there were no lily pads on or near the surface where they could perch. The weather hasn’t gotten cold yet, so I didn’t think the frogs would be ready to go into their winter hibernation. Several small frogs are in the habit of sitting at the edge of the pond and swiftly jumping into the water if anyone approaches. I compromised by leaving a 1-foot opening where the pond was uncovered next to the frogs’ favorite sitting area.

Space for frogs to escape from the netting-covered pond

    Ruminating about the needs of frogs made me realize that my perspective has changed a lot in the last eight years. In shifting to seeing myself as part of a community of living things in the yard, I’ve opened up a lot of questions that never would have crossed my mind before. 

    How about this one: should I throw the cones dropped by our big white pine into the yard waste?

Pine cones: yard waste or winter forage?

I’ve done that for years, because I didn’t want the garden to turn into a white pine forest. This year for the first time I hesitated. Maybe those cones feed some animal during the winter. I compromised: I threw the cones lying on paths and lawn back toward the base of the tree.

My compromise is to move the cones back within the dripline of the pine

    Will I gradually stop being able to do anything in the yard except remove nonnative invasive plants? No, I insist on retaining the right to be a gardener! But I’m seeing a lot of my choices differently.