Encouraging Dragonflies and Damselflies to Your Pond

By Sharpening Hand Tools for Woodland Management Work
Comments 35
16 Jul 2026

Encouraging Dragonflies and Damselflies to Your Pond

Why Dragonflies and Damselflies Are Worth the Effort

There are few better signs that a pond is working properly than a dragonfly patrolling its edges on a warm July afternoon. Britain is home to more than forty species of dragonfly and damselfly, and most will happily use a garden or community pond given the right combination of clean water, structure and sunshine. The reward is not only colour: these insects are voracious predators of midges and other small flies, and their presence tells you a great deal about the health of the water beneath them.

Encouraging them is largely a matter of getting a few fundamentals right, then being patient. Both groups spend most of their lives underwater as nymphs — often one to three years — so the pond itself matters far more than anything you do above the surface.

Clean Water, Rainwater and a Muddy Bottom

Dragonfly nymphs take oxygen from the water, so quality counts. Fill and top up your pond with rainwater from a butt wherever possible; tap water carries nutrients and minerals that encourage algal blooms and cloud the clear conditions nymphs need. Site the pond away from fertiliser, compost heaps and paved run-off, and never let lawn feed or weedkiller drain into it.

A good wildlife pond has a range of depths. Aim for shelving margins just a few centimetres underwater, which warm quickly and are where nymphs hunt and later emerge, dropping to around 60 to 80 centimetres in the middle so that life survives a hard frost. Leave the bottom alone: a layer of silt, leaf litter and decaying plant matter is not dirt, it is habitat. Resist the urge to strip it out in autumn. Some surface movement is fine, but powerful pumps, waterfalls and fountains are unnecessary and can wash nymphs about.

Emergent Plants: Launch Pads and Hunting Grounds

Emergent plants — those rooted below but growing above the waterline — are the single most useful addition to a dragonfly pond. Nymphs climb them when they are ready to transform, hauling themselves clear of the water so the adult can break out of its larval skin. Without suitable stems, that final, vulnerable stage often fails.

Yellow flag iris and purple loosestrife for tall, sturdy emergence stems.
Marsh marigold and water forget-me-not for low flowering cover around the margins.
Water mint and water plantain for the dense fine structure damselflies favour.
Rigid hornwort and curled pondweed as submerged oxygenators where nymphs hunt and hide.

Choose native species grown from British stock, and avoid invasive non-natives such as floating pennywort, parrot's feather and New Zealand pygmyweed, which can smother a small pond within a season.

Warmth, Shelter and Perching Posts

Adult dragonflies are solar-powered. They need warmth to fly and will choose a sunny, sheltered pond over a shaded one almost every time. If you can, site the pond where it receives direct sun for at least six hours a day, and let taller planting or a hedge take the prevailing wind off it.

Perches matter too. Unlike butterflies, dragonflies do not feed at flowers; they hunt on the wing and rest between flights. Leave dead stems, seed heads and a few twiggy branches standing over winter — they serve as emergence sites, basking spots and lookout posts. A bare fence post, a sun-warmed stone or a stake leaning over the water will all be claimed. Damselflies tend to stay lower, so let grasses and marginals grow a little shaggy rather than tidying everything to the edge.

Leave the Fish Out

If you want a rich pond, this is the rule that matters most: do not put fish in a small pond. Goldfish, koi and even small native fish will strip a pond of nymphs, tadpoles and other invertebrates with remarkable speed. A pond with fish is usually a pond with very few dragonflies. The same applies to ducks, which muddy the water and eat whatever they can reach.

Plenty of gardeners worry that a fishless pond will become stagnant. It will not. Frogs, newts, water beetles, pond snails and a host of other creatures will move in and keep the water balanced. A little predation from newts is perfectly tolerable; a shoal of hungry goldfish is not.

Watching, Recording and Sharing Your Pond

Give a new pond a season or two. Nymphs take time to colonise, and dragonflies are mobile enough to find you once conditions are right — often within a year or two, particularly if there are other ponds, ditches or slow streams nearby. Early arrivals in a new pond are frequently common darters, azure damselflies and broad-bodied chasers, with emperors and southern hawkers following as vegetation establishes.

Keep a simple record of what you see and when, and pass it on to your county recorder or local wildlife group; these sightings genuinely shape our understanding of how species are shifting. Pond dipping sessions with children are a wonderful way to build support, provided everyone puts the creatures back gently.

Above all, encourage your neighbours. A cluster of small, fish-free, plant-rich ponds across a village or housing estate is worth far more to dragonflies than one isolated pool, because it lets them move, breed and recolonise after a bad winter. Start with the water, add the plants, leave the fish out, and the flying jewels will do the rest.

Ponds & Wetlands

Safe Chainsaw Use for Small Woodland Owners

Clear leaves from paths, check tree guards, and leave seed heads for birds. Autumn work prepares woodland for winter and supports overwintering wildlife.

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5 Comments

Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply
- John Abraham says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
  
  I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
  Reply
  - Robert Sonnysays Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
    
    I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
    Reply
Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply

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