Pond help needed for complete beginner

[Molliebee]

I’ve just moved in to a house with two wildlife ponds. One with lots of frogspawn at the moment and the other with a few lily pads and water boat men zipping around. They have been neglected for about five years while the house was empty. And a tree that was next to one of them has been removed so I have a gap to fill with something lovely.

I’m a compete beginner so would really appreciate some advice on how to look after the ponds and what would work well around them.

Here’s the pond with the frogspawn

Not sure why the photos didn’t attach.

Here is the other pond

I’d leave the pond with frogspawn until the Autumn, so the frogs and possibly newts have time to mature. In the meantime just clear the surrounds and decide how your going to plant it. Lovely Acer tree on the edge.
The second pond looks completely stagnant with weed. I’d clear that now, as it’s unlikely to have any wildlife, if there are you could transfer them to the other pond. There looks like a pump lying nearby, so that pond might have had fish in it. To be successful ponds need to have a balance of oxygen from oxygenating plants. I’m no expert, but have two reasonably thriving wildlife ponds, more by luck than anything else.
Do some internet/ book research to help. Good luck ponds are great.

The frogspawn pond needs low vegetation coming up to one edge so baby frogs can get out and get under cover.

I can’t see any weed in the second pond, but it is green with algae. That’s partly solved by decreasing sunlight. Aim to have a third of the surface covered with plants, eg a miniature water lily, water forget-me-not. Actually, I see you already have a lily, so that will do. Barley straw, or a tightly tied bundle of old lavender flower stems, will clear the algae by reducing the level of nutrient.

you can buy bundles of 'barley straw' to put in the green pond to reduce the algae. not sure how well it works but it might.