Hello, what kind of a week have you had? I am enjoying seeing all the spring flowers, the lambs in the field next to the house, and a few blue skies. Spring time has so much promise. The pond is lovely, though it is sadly bare of plants. Even the grass on the bank is being dug up and eaten by greedy ducks—perhaps in retaliation for my stealing their eggs.

Ducks are generally terrible mothers—they often lay their eggs in random places, and although occasionally one will make a nest and hatch the eggs, as soon as they hatch she leaves the nest and goes back to the pond. The ducklings have to struggle to keep up with her, or else be eaten. I am usually aware that the eggs have hatched because I hear the crows and magpies as they circle the pond, ready for a tasty snack.

I am currently collecting the eggs as they are laid, and will incubate them when I have enough. I’ll leave three in the nest. There is one nest, the other eggs are laid randomly on the bank, some roll into the water, some are collected by crows—my ducks clearly never read the ‘how to build a nest’ manual. I’ll then raise them inside until they’re too big for the crows to eat (they’re full-grown in four weeks). Am hoping to time it so they are on the pond before I have to start serious revision for my exams.

Ducks are lovely, but they do tend to destroy anything growing around the pond. I have tried protecting plants with nets and fences—but they don’t look very nice. In the early days, I used to believe the people in the garden centres who would assure me that I could buy certain plants and ‘the ducks won’t eat them.’ They either lied, or knew very little about ducks.

So, if you hope to both keep ducks and grow plants around your pond, here is a list of plants that ducks will eat. Some of them are poisonous, so they shouldn’t really be planted near a pond (though none of my ducks have ever died from eating plants that are listed as ‘poisonous’). It is quite a long list.

Plants that ducks will eat include:

water starwort 
hornwort
willow moss
frog’s lettuce
mare’s-tail
water violet
water milfoils
water lobelia
water crowfoot

They also eat floating plants such as:

frogbit
water soldier
duckweed
waterlilies (all kinds)

Marginal plants they will eat include:
great water plantain
water hawthorn
bog bean
arum lily
sweet flag
flowering rush
bog arum
yellow flag
corkscrew rush
golden club
pickerel weed
large-flowered spearwort
Old World arrowhead
zebra rush
T. laxmannii
T. minima
Acorus gramineus ‘Variegatus’
marsh marigold
Bowles’ golden sedge
Carex pendula
C. pseudocyperus
golden buttons
Houttuynia cordata
Japanese water iris
Iris versicolor 
Mimulus cardinalis 
M. lewisii 
M. luteus
M. ringens
water forget-me-not
Saururus cernuus
brooklime

Plants that ducks do not eat include:

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Nope, cannot think of any. Trees I guess—but only because duck feet are designed to swim not perch, so they cannot reach the leaves very easily.

Hoping your plants grow well this spring.

Thanks for reading.
Take care.
Love, Anne x