6 Amazing DIY Toad House Plans for Your Garden (With Pictures)
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Jeff Weishaupt
- Last updated:
If you’re new to gardening, you probably wonder why many gardeners dream of attracting toads to their backyards. Besides being adorable, these little amphibians are highly beneficial for your garden’s ecosystem.
In fact, toads can naturally prey on up to 10,000 insects in a single summer,1 including slugs, snails, and other pests you’ve wished to get rid of. So, a resident toad in your garden isn’t just a cute addition; it’s the perfect way to keep the pest population down and avoid using harsh pesticides or labor-intensive natural controls.
Luckily, toad houses are the perfect way to attract these helpful amphibians to your garden. Learn how to make a toad house with these creative DIY ideas.
The 6 DIY Toad Houses
1. Stone Toad House by STRYKER
| Materials: | Pebbles, super glue, soil |
| Tools: | None |
| Difficulty Level: | Moderate |
A toad house made from stones and pebbles will create a perfectly cool and moist living space for the little amphibians. All you need to do is collect some smooth, flat pebbles to make a small toad house.
The best part about this little house is that you can collect all of the pebbles from your own property! Just go out for a nature walk and gather pebbles in a bag to get started.
2. Flowerpot Toad Cave by Yarnigras Swapper Spot
| Materials: | Flowerpot, soil, paint |
| Tools: | None |
| Difficulty Level: | Easy |
Making a flowerpot cave is the easiest way to create a habitable toad house in your garden. It only takes 5 minutes and even allows you to customize the toad house with paint and other art supplies.
You can start by digging a shallow ditch near a body of water or bird water feed in your garden. Then, place a medium-sized flowerpot on its side in the ditch, ensuring it’s adequately situated and doesn’t have space to roll around.
Next, fill half of the sideways flowerpot with soil from your garden. Now that you’ve achieved a cave-like structure for nearby toads to stay in. You can make the cave even more welcoming by placing some mealworms in the soil, as it’s one of their favorite foods.
3. Stone Toad Igloo by My Garden Life
| Materials: | Pebbles, cement, soil, superglue |
| Tools: | None |
| Difficulty Level: | Moderate |
Toad houses don’t just have to be a practical addition to your garden to get rid of pests. When done right, they can also add to your garden’s aesthetic. If a simple stone toad house doesn’t appeal to you, you can opt for a stone igloo instead.
The first few steps follow the same procedure of setting up a base, using super glue between layers of pebbles, and leaving some space for the entryway. You can also use cement mixture as grout on the igloo’s interior to fill the empty spaces and stabilize the toad house.
The perfect finishing touch to your stone toad igloo is a small, adorable entryway. Line the entrance with an additional layer of pebbles to replicate the igloo structure, and you’re good to go!
4. Clay Pot Toad House by DecoArt
| Materials: | Clay pot, paint, soil |
| Tools: | None |
| Difficulty Level: | Easy |
If you’re looking for a quick toad house tutorial but don’t have any flowerpots available, you can use a clay pot instead. Just dig a shallow ditch in the soil and place the pot sideways. Then, fill the inside of the clay pot with soil, and you have a deep toad cave for your amphibian friends!
Since a clay pot is much larger, you have enough space to accommodate multiple toads and frogs, rapidly decreasing the pest population in your garden.
5. Flowerpot Toad Nest by Chasing Cheerios
| Materials: | Flowerpot, hay, leaves, soil |
| Tools: | None |
| Difficulty Level: | Moderate |
Camouflaging your toad house in nature ensures that the toads are protected from predators such as snakes and house pets. It also makes it a more welcoming environment for the amphibians when the toad house doesn’t stand out too prominently.
To make the toad house blend in with your garden’s surroundings, you can create a nest-like structure by adding hay, grass, moss, and leaves. This will also ensure that the toad house is moist and suitable for the toad’s survival.
6. Rhubarb Leaf Toad House by Little Things
| Materials: | Concrete, giant rhubarb leaf, spray paint, soil, sand, plastic wrap, wire mesh |
| Tools: | Wire cutter |
| Difficulty Level: | Hard |
Although this DIY plan may be time-taking and challenging, the result will be worth it, as you’ll have an aesthetic addition to your garden. Start by collecting your materials and tools, and make sure you have enough concrete to make a giant rhubarb leaf toad house.
If you don’t have a rhubarb tree nearby, you can go to your nearest plant nursery and ask for one.
How to Attract Toads to Your Garden
First and foremost, you must provide cover from predators. Unfortunately, small as they are, toads fall prey to many animals, including birds, snakes, and even house pets. If you followed any of our DIY tutorials to make a toad house, you’re inevitably providing cover from predators and extreme weather conditions for the toad.
Next, ensure that the covers are moist since these amphibians need plenty of water to survive. Making their environment moist is as simple as placing the toad house near a body of water. If you don’t have a lake or puddle near your house, you can place a bird water dish near the toad house.
Lastly, you must eliminate harmful chemicals and pesticides from your gardening process, as they can be detrimental to the toad’s health. You can transition this change by using an organic pesticide, and soon enough, the toads will take up the job of getting rid of pests.
Conclusion
DIYing a mini toad house to attract those helpful amphibians to your garden is a fun project you can take up on the weekend. You can also eliminate pesticides and provide a source of water to make your garden a more welcoming place for toads and benefit from a controlled pest population without any effort.
Featured Image Credit: 2000holmes, Pixabay
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