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Garden PondsA garden pond can loosely be described as a water feature that has been constructed in a garden - sometimes for aesthetic purposes, and other times for providing wildlife habitat. In the United Kingdom alone, there are estimated to be two million garden ponds, and although they can either be man-made or natural holes in the ground, this bears no relevance at all to the kind of wildlife colonising the pond. The most important aspect for pond life is, in fact, whether it is clean or polluted, as well as its depth (as it could easily dry out during warm periods). The amount of fish in a pond, if any, is also an important aspect to the ecology of the environment. Because ponds can vary in their chemical and physical conditions from one day to another, and even at different times during the same day, owners try to combat this shift by installing pumps to keep the water aerated. Filters can also be utilised to combat the growth of certain algae. Garden ponds differ from natural ones due to the fact that most of them are initially filled using tap water. The general consensus about this though is that because drinking water has many chemicals added to it to make it safe for humans, it could "pollute" the pond, which is not the way a new pond owner wants to kick of their new feature. Although there are chemical pond treatments available on the market that may have a few beneficial effects in combating this, they are not really considered to be an effective solution. Natural ponds, on the other hand, can be fed by a variety of means. These can include rain, groundwater runoff, and inflows from ditches, streams or springs. Wildlife in natural ponds depends greatly on how polluted the water that fills it is. Because garden ponds are not normally fed by groundwater or inflows (unless they are found in really big gardens), they are usually kept topped up by rainwater and surface runoff. In periods of warm weather, evaporation could exceed the amount of water entering the pond, with a real fear of it running dry. Although not a major problem for some species of plants and amphibians, this could obviously be catastrophic if fish are present in the environment. Quite apart from the fact that the owner of the pond may not want to see his or her pond empty; regardless of whether this impacts on pond-life or not. Conversely, a pond that has temporarily run dry can actually prove to be beneficial for certain a type of amphibians, as it can often mimic what happens in nature, so can therefore be considered part of a natural process. UK Home & Garden Guides
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