How to Encourage Dragonflies into Your Garden

Few garden visitors are as thrilling as a dragonfly. Britain has dozens of species of dragonfly and damselfly, and a handful will happily move into a well-designed garden pond: the southern hawker, emperor dragonfly, broad-bodied chaser, four-spotted chaser, common darter, and the azure, blue-tailed and large red damselflies among them. They all want the same three things — still water, plants growing up out of the water, and somewhere warm to sit. Get those right and a new pond can be colonised within a season or two.

Start with Still Water in Full Sun

Dragonflies are sun-worshippers. Aim for a pond that receives at least five or six hours of direct sunshine, especially through the middle of the day, and that sits away from the prevailing wind. A spot just south of a hedge or fence is ideal: warm, sheltered, but not shaded by a tree to the south.

The water itself should be still. Most of the dragonfly's life is spent underwater as a nymph, hunting among the plants and waiting to climb out. Churning water from pumps, fountains and waterfalls disturbs the nymphs and puts females off laying. If you want moving water, keep it to one quiet corner at one end of the pond, or run it for an hour a day rather than constantly.

A garden pool 30cm to 60cm deep is plenty, so long as it has shallow margins of 5cm to 10cm where nymphs can hunt. Top up in dry spells with rainwater rather than tap water, and keep lawn fertiliser and weedkiller well away from the edge — the run-off feeds blanket weed and harms everything in the water.

Plant Emergents: the Launch Pads

Emergent plants are the ones rooted in the water with stems and leaves rising above the surface, and they are the single most important planting for dragonflies. Nymphs climb them on the night they leave the water, adults rest on them, and females push their eggs into the soft stems. Damselflies in particular will barely visit a pond without them.

• Yellow flag iris — tall, handsome, brilliant for emergence.
• Purple loosestrife — long season of nectar-rich flower spikes.
• Water forget-me-not and marsh marigold — low mats at the very edge.
• Greater spearwort and flowering rush — good structure in shallow water.
• Soft rush, sedges and bogbean — slender stems for climbing.
• Water mint — aromatic, buzzing with insects by August.

Plant into baskets or straight into a marginal shelf. Then resist the urge to tidy: leave the old stems standing right through winter and into late spring. Those hollow, dead-looking stems are exactly what a nymph needs when it finally crawls out. Cut them back in May, once the earliest damselflies have emerged.

Give Them Somewhere to Bask

Dragonflies are cold-blooded and spend much of a summer's day warming up between hunting flights. Provide several basking spots and you will see the same individual return to the same perch over and over.

• Flat, pale stones on the sunny side of the pond, angled towards the midday sun.
• A log or boulder at the water's edge, warm and dry.
• A few bare, twiggy branches standing upright in the margin.
• Bamboo canes or thin stakes pushed in at a 45-degree angle over the water.
• The bare tips of tall stems and the topmost leaves of irises.

Leave a fence post or an old mossy branch nearby, too. Emperors and hawkers often patrol a short stretch of water and then settle just outside the pond to feed and digest.

Think Twice About Fish

If you want lots of dragonflies, keep the pond fish-free. Goldfish and koi hoover up nymphs with enthusiasm, and a pond packed with fish will be a pond oddly lacking in insect life. Newts, frogs and toads will eat some larvae, but they belong in a garden pond and the two can coexist perfectly well.

Equally important is what you do away from the water. Adult dragonflies hunt on the wing, taking midges, mosquitoes, small flies and moths, so a garden free of insecticides and generous with long grass, nettle patches and wildflower corners will feed them far better. Avoid algaecides, and let the pond find its own balance rather than nuking every green thing.

A Little Wildness Pays Off

Sweeping, manicured ponds are less productive than slightly rumpled ones. Pile up some logs and dead leaves nearby, let a corner of grass grow long, and allow the margins to sprawl over the edge. Damselflies in particular like dappled shade and vegetation flopping over the water, and a small bog garden beside the pond adds another layer of habitat.

Whatever you do, do not clean the pond out in autumn. Nymphs overwinter in the leaf litter and soft mud at the bottom, and dredging it in October throws away next summer's dragonflies. If you must clear weed, do it gently in late spring, leaving what you lift on the side for a day so anything caught up can crawl back.

What to Look For Through the Season

Large red damselflies are usually first, appearing in late April or May on the earliest warm days. Azure and blue-tailed damselflies follow in May and June, along with broad-bodied chasers. The peak comes in June, July and August, when emperors and southern hawkers patrol the length of even a small pond and four-spotted chasers squabble over territory.

Watch for pairs flying in tandem, the male gripping the female behind the head while she dips into the water or inserts eggs into a stem. From July to October, common and ruddy darters sit on stones and warm gravel, sometimes right through to the first frosts. If you spot a nymph case — a small, hollow, parchment-brown husk clinging to a stem or fence post — leave it in place. It is proof that your pond has just produced a dragonfly, and there will be more.