I now have both male and female dragon and damselflies (blue and green) in my New Orleans garden, so I know they're mating. My cast iron 4-foot sugar kettle fountain in full sun is perfect for them. There's native cattail I grew from a corndog seedhead from Bayou Sauvage, native pickerel weed, and Amazonian common water hyacinth I fished out of the Mississippi. It's invasive, but I keep it in check, and so do the natives. Around the fountain, water splashes lightly on mint planted below that bees LOVE, and we use the mint almost daily in summer for tea and salads. I've got birds and cats who drink out of the fountain, frogs, bees of all kinds, butterflies of a half dozen species, small garden snakes, and my favorite, the dragon and damselflies now because of my small, gentle fountain and many natives and flowering plants in and around it. Surprisingly, the mosquitoes aren't bad around the water, even in a swamp bowl like New Orleans, as long as I don't leave the fountain off more than a day or so to kill mosquito eggs that need the water stagnant. The mosquitoes prefer shadier places with no breeze like my hammock corner, sadly. Everyone should get a fountain with plants for dragonflies.
I now have both male and female dragon and damselflies (blue and green) in my New Orleans garden, so I know they're mating. My cast iron 4-foot sugar kettle fountain in full sun is perfect for them. There's native cattail I grew from a corndog seedhead from Bayou Sauvage, native pickerel weed, and Amazonian common water hyacinth I fished out of the Mississippi. It's invasive, but I keep it in check, and so do the natives. Around the fountain, water splashes lightly on mint planted below that bees LOVE, and we use the mint almost daily in summer for tea and salads. I've got birds and cats who drink out of the fountain, frogs, bees of all kinds, butterflies of a half dozen species, small garden snakes, and my favorite, the dragon and damselflies now because of my small, gentle fountain and many natives and flowering plants in and around it. Surprisingly, the mosquitoes aren't bad around the water, even in a swamp bowl like New Orleans, as long as I don't leave the fountain off more than a day or so to kill mosquito eggs that need the water stagnant. The mosquitoes prefer shadier places with no breeze like my hammock corner, sadly. Everyone should get a fountain with plants for dragonflies.