answersLogoWhite

0

By violent means - which have equally "violent ends"* - the gardener or cultivator may get rid of frogs (order Anura) within the garden.

The frogs may be rendered hungry by removing their mosquito and slug food sources. Just remove as much moisture as possible. Stop supplemental watering. Break down all water features, Swimming Pools and natural water bodies.

Render the frogs homeless by removing their preferred habitats. Specifically, increase the amount of impervious surface, against all possibility of underground burrows. So link the indoors with such "outdoor rooms" as patios, gazebos, gardens and decks. Build such gardening structures as potting sheds and greenhouses. Add paved footpaths and enlarged driveways.

Render them helpless by resorting to chemical controls of garden problems. Frogs easily may secrete defensive toxins. They just as easily may absorb environmental toxins, such as pesticides. Specifically, they tend to be as sensitive as such other beneficials as bees.

Render them frightened by killing all their eggs or by installing whatever traps or controls are recommended against nuisance populations.

The choice of any one of the above means may be understandable within the context of having to fill up frog holes or risk ankle injury by walking through them. But the holes serve a purpose. They actually are access points for the frogs to overwinter underground or between the roots of trees. In other words, the frogs are just doing what they can to survive.

So if none of the above appeals to the gardener or cultivator bent on control, there is another more environmentally-friendly possibility. This approach is based on what those frog holes do for the soil. Specifically, compacted soils that prevent adequate movement of air and moisture are side-effects of the development that allows civilization and its contents (and discontents). Frog holes create air and moisture spaces for the soil and its soil food web of plant roots and underground critter.

So another option is respecting the good that frogs and their holes do and just patiently filling in each hole with your favorite plant.

*William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet," II:6:9-11.

User Avatar

Wiki User

13y ago

What else can I help you with?