Tiny Wetlands, Big Impact: The Wildlife Power of Garden Ponds

Gardening with the RHS

Royal Horticultural Society

Home & Garden, Leisure, Hobbies

4.4 • 654 Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

All life begins with water — and in gardens across the UK, ponds are becoming vital sanctuaries for wildlife. Now is an excellent time of year to create one, and RHS expert Helen Bensted-Smith walks us through everything you need to know: from position and depth, to lining material, structure, and how to fill it! It’s the first in our four-part mini-series on making your own wildlife haven this autumn — starting from the ground up with tips on planning, design, and making your pond truly work for nature. Plus, Emma McFarline returns to share the fascinating histories and healing traditions of two timeless plants — the apothecary rose and chamomile — and Duncan McLean offers expert advice on finding the perfect indoor plant to brighten up your home through the November chill. From ponds to petals and everything in between, it’s a celebration of how nature connects us — indoors and out. Host: Jenny Laville Contributors: Helen Bensted-Smith, Emma McFarline, Duncan McLean Links: How to build a wildlife pond RHS Rosemoor RHS plants

Transcript

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0:00.0	Looking for the perfect gift for the garden lover in your life?
0:04.0	This Christmas, save £15 on an NHS gift membership
0:07.8	and give them unlimited visits to NHS gardens
0:10.8	and over 230 partner gardens all year round.
0:15.2	They'll enjoy reduced rate tickets and priority access to NHS shows
0:18.8	plus so much more.
0:20.9	Save £15.orghs.org.uk.
0:25.0	Our friends soon, terms and conditions apply.
0:27.2	Ponds and amazing habitats really because they support most of our freshwater invertebrates.
0:46.3	If you imagine different freshwater environments, so you've got streams and rivers, dams,
0:52.3	you've got the larger lakes, estuaries, ponds as a group collectively
0:57.0	can support more wildlife than any of these other water bodies. So they're really, really essential
1:04.0	habitats. And the fact that we can build these habitats in our gardens and they can serve exactly
1:08.0	the same purpose as a pond in the wild I think is really
1:11.8	cool because it's not that hard to do that it can make the difference between some of these
1:16.8	species like having somewhere to live having somewhere to breed or not being able to find
1:23.0	that particularly in urban areas.
1:30.3	All life begins with water. And in gardens across the UK,
1:32.3	ponds form a shimmering network of tiny wetlands,
1:35.3	quietly helping to offset the loss of natural habitats
1:37.3	in our wider countryside.
1:39.3	Even the smallest pond can become a sanctuary
	...

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