Those eagle-eyed readers amongst you will have spotted that the bamboo stakes already made a brief cameo last week – but I skipped over how they actually got here and the mini-battle we had after… You would suspect that buying bamboo stakes would be easy. The process would be something along the lines of: 1. Open Lazada app 2. Search for bamboo stakes 3. Buy said bamboo stakes. 4 wait for delivery.
If it was really that easy for me, why did it take me the better part of half an hour? Well, I hope you’ve asked the local dragonfly populace for their bamboo stake preferences before opening the app. Unfortunately my survey came back relatively sparse so old Google had to come to the rescue.
The ones I finally settled on were 90cm in height and 0.8cm width, which took a fair bit of finding. Shame, the shipping cost as much as the sticks – we just hope that our future dragonfly friends appreciate the effort we went through.
The first challenge was the ground.
Anyone who has spent time in a Thai garden in the dry season will know that the soil has the approximate consistency of compressed concrete. We’d read that bamboo stakes should be pushed into the ground near the water feature, which sounded simple enough until we actually tried it. Two 1.5 litre water bottles, poured carefully onto three spots, gave us enough to work with on two of them. The third spot – catching more sun, possibly different soil composition underneath – put up considerably more resistance. There may have been some creative and colourful language involved. We’re not confirming (nor denying) this.
Two stakes are now in the ground flanking where the pond pot will sit, roughly three metres apart. That’s comfortably within the recommended spacing for dragonfly territory – research suggests at least 90cm between perches to avoid disputes, and three metres gives them room to establish their patch without conflict. The pot itself is sitting on the grass nearby, waiting for the next stage.
Which brings us to the pot situation.
We had identified what we thought was an excellent candidate for the guppy pond – a large, sturdy pot that had been left by the previous owner. Good size, good depth, perfect position. The only issue was retrieving it from a spot that gets full sun from early morning. By the time we got to it at around 10am it was, to put it in technical language, extremely bloody hot. Oven-level hot. The kind of hot that makes you immediately realise that holding this with bare hands would be in the top three mistakes of your day… you’d hope.
Improvised oven gloves were fashioned from two pairs of shorts retrieved from the washing basket. This was, in retrospect, not our finest hour. The pot made it approximately halfway to its destination before gravity and thermal dynamics combined to remind us that there is a reason shorts are not sold as oven gloves, and I am not a professional pot handlers.
One less pot to experiment with. The garden has noted this. I have noted the oven glove thing for next time.
We’re now working with a smaller pot, which is currently sitting on the grass in its intended spot. Fewer holes than the original candidate, which is actually a point in its favour. No water in it yet – that comes next, along with the guppies, which we’re planning to source from local shops rather than online. We want to see the conditions they’re kept in before committing.
The location is slightly away from the house, which means we can’t easily observe the stakes from indoors – but that’s the right call for a mosquito pond. What we did notice during setup was encouraging – butterflies and other insects moving through the area, which suggests the ecosystem is already active. That’s exactly what dragonflies need. Whether they’ll find the stakes remains to be seen.
The pot needs water. The guppies need buying. The third stake needs a more determined human and possibly better hydration of the soil.
Progress, of a sort.