Authored by Donna Ryan in Gardening
Published on 01-22-2010
If you want to create a toad-friendly garden, you’ll need to design an inviting environment for those voracious little eaters of bugs and caterpillars to survive and thrive. Therefore, since toads provide pest control for your plants, you’ll want to make sure your garden is a place where they’ll want to reside.
Provide a shelter for your amphibian friends with piles of wood, rocks or leaves where they can hide and comfortably live. Or build a little rock house with a couple of large rocks away from the wind. A breeze can consume the moisture from a toad’s skin so make sure you locate his living areas in secluded areas of your garden or yard that are sheltered from unruly breezes.
Make a toad home with a pot made of clay. Lay the pot on its side and include a small amount of dirt for the flooring. Make sure you maintain your garden so it’s free from harmful chemicals as toads are highly vulnerable to such substances. Therefore, make certain you use organic fertilizers such as compost and stay away from using any commercial fertilizers as they can annihilate a toad population. This way, the toads can take the place of damaging pesticides and be a natural means in which to control the insects in your garden.
Toads are able to live for up to 40 years so if you make your garden inviting to them, you will have healthy plants and a natural and sustaining environment in which they can live. In addition to toad homes, provide places where the toads can cool off on warm summer evenings. Place water in shallow pans in shaded areas if you can’t provide a pond where they can retreat. If you can provide a small pond, then that’s even better. Include aquatic plants in addition to your terrestrial plant offerings and you will have a garden that will provide you with variety as well as an oasis toads will enjoy.
Toads like to burrow so you may also want to build some burrows for them in your garden. Create each burrow by digging a shallow depression in the soil around flowers and shrubbery. Border the depression or spot with large, flat rocks and tier them so they surround the area at about five inches in height. To keep your garden toad-friendly, make sure toads can live in areas where they can comfortably hide; therefore, the garden doesn’t have to be neat and tidy. Toads prefer gardens that have a more natural and less-manicured look.
To attract toads, you’ll also want to attract the bugs they enjoy eating. In order to do this, make sure the garden is lighted so it’s welcoming to insects. Setting up a toad light about 3 feet high will attract bugs as well as the interest of toads. Light the garden with these and similar lights to attract bugs and therefore draw toads to a veritable source of food.
Follow the above tips and you will not only have a toad-friendly garden but an eco friendly habitat too.
