Rewilding My Lot

The pond was installed in November 2024, so it has been in place now for about a year and a half. During that time, various components of the pond ecosystem (i.e., plants, algae, fish, insects, amphibians, etc.) have been settling in and finding their equilibria.

A major plant type in the pond are two kinds of waterlily (with yellow and white blooms). I chose them for multiple reasons — they’re attractive, their leaves provide shade for the water, and I hoped that they would provide drinking platforms for small insect visitors.

The five waterlily plants have now grown to the point that their leaves cover a significant area of the pond. This summer I have started to see butterflies drinking from the water while standing on waterlily leaves. Below is a Bordered Patch (Chlosyne lacinia). One of their host plants is sunflowers, and there are plenty of those in the garden at the moment.

These new butterflies join the more courageous creatures that have been drinking from waterlily leaves for months — primarily wasps and large spiders. Those two seem able to walk across the surface tension of the water without needing the support of leaves, so perhaps that is why I saw them first. Below is an Apache Paper Wasp (Polistes apachus), and there are several of their nests in the garden.