Nearly two years ago we moved into a new house. It had 3 water features; I decommissioned one, but the fountain/sculpture and the waterfall remain. The house hadn’t been lived in for a while and the water features were filled with mud/compost, and we cleaned them out.
We (actually, the cat) found a small frog in a big indoor plant. We guess it got in with the dirt, since it’s a vine we planted from scratch. I think it was a Cope’s Gray Tree Frog. We found the frog in February (after what was probably a harrowing two months living in the potted plant, evading our cat). At my wife’s request, I moved it outside.
In April, the singing begain. It was surprisingly loud. At first, just one frog, but by August (when the singing quit), there were three. Now we probably have nearly a dozen, and the din is impressive.
Any good ideas on frog control? There’s an outdoor cat we’ve sort of adopted who drinks from these features, so we don’t want to poison the water. I now periodically empty and refill to avoid new hatches growing up, but I’m sure many of the frogs wandered in thanks to the calls. (At one point we had two or three different species, probably a common gray tree frog which has a different call, but now we’re back to just one species, if the calls are any guide.)
I’m tempted to simply empty them both and keep them empty (no small feat, especially with the rains this spring) and wait a couple years until they go away. However, I suspect that they’d come back pretty quickly.
I found some advice on the web, but most not helpful. It’s a garden, not a lawn, and while the sound bothers my wife more than me, she wouldn’t go for razing the vegetation. A perimiter fence isn’t practical. I will try snake repellant, but thought you clever folks might have a better solution.
Thanks!
