Building Frog-friendly Gardens Workshop Programme

What outdoor activity can you do that will help native frogs, beautify your own back yard and allow you and your family to have a whole lot of fun at the same time?

Build a frog-friendly garden!!






Our local frogs are increasingly under threat from development, the use of chemicals in the environment and the frog fungus. One thing you can do to help our local frogs is to make your garden frog-friendly. By having a frog pond and a good understorey of native bush, residents can increase the network of ponds in their local frog community. This will help frogs to return to areas where they may have disappeared owing to development or the fungus.

When lots of neighbours have frog-friendly gardens, then frogs don't have to travel as far across our modern "concrete jungle", including roads (just like the old video game!). The more frog-friendly back yards there are, the greater number of frogs there will be in the local population. This means greater insurance for the persistence of the population and brings people and frogs closer together.

Benefits to the frog-friendly gardeners are getting glimpses of frogs clinging to bushes, hunkering down in the garden bed, sometimes hopping about at dusk and especially during rain. Proud frog pond owners can enjoy the melodious calls of frogs during the breeding season, seeing masses of wriggling hungry tadpoles in their pond and tiny newly emerged froglets taking their first hops to their new land-loving life. Building a frog pond and planting native vegetation is fun and provides a wonderful environment to enjoy native wildlife in your own backyard.

Two keys to our program are the BFFG workshops and the our "how-to" booklet


Workshops - presented by the "Frog Doctor" Johnny Prefumo

Alcoa Frog Watch is pleased to announce a new series of Workshops aimed at people wishing to build a frog pond and to make their gardens more frog-friendly. Johnny Prefumo, a dedicated frogger, naturalist and conservationist, will lead the workshops based on his vast knowledge of frogs and native gardening. During the workshops, Johnny will cover these following topics:

• Frog biology
• Pond structure & ecology
• Frogscaping and plant selection
• Wetland walk
• Q & A

Workshops are only $5 for the 4 hour session. Copies of our excellent "how to" booklet (see below) will be on sale plus the CD of southwest Australian frog calls.




Above - young froggers searching for frogs on an Alcoa Frog Watch night walk

"Building Frog Friendly Gardens" Booklet

Alcoa Frog Watch has published a lovely guide entitled "Building Frog-friendly Gardens" by Ken Aplin, Anthea Paino and Lyndal Sleep. Available from the WA Museum Bookshop, the booklet has been specifically written for frogs of the Perth region, but the principles apply more broadly to WA and the rest of Australia. The book contains all you need to know (and then some) on how to get started on building a frog pond and planting your garden so that it's frog-friendly. Step-by-step instructions are provided for installing a pond and planting native vegetation that will be good for frogs and other native wildlife.