Bog Garden

If life gives you lemons... Well, I didn't get a lemon tree when I bought my house, but I did get a very wet back yard and heavy clay soil. There isn't much I can grow without digging out the clay and replacing it with better dirt and compost. I decided at one point that I should have a pond, so I started to dig. If you've ever dug up wet clay, you know that it sticks to the shovel. When you use your boot to scrape it off the shovel, it sticks to your boot. Soon, you are a couple of inches taller than you used to be as the clay turns your boots into platform shoes. Anyway, I dug a sort of oval shape about 6 feet by 10 feet and three to four feet deep. If anyone suggests that it's a good idea to do this with a shovel, I can disabuse them of that notion. Next time I want a big hole, I'm renting a big orange shovel with an engine! Anyway, I had this hole and I was researching what to do about a liner and a pump and all of that when it rained. The water didn't soak into the ground, it just filled up the hole and stayed there. That sort of put the kibosh on my plans to install a liner but I figured it would dry out before long. Now it's several years later, and the pond is a bog garden, filled with water lilies which I planted, and cat tails which I didn't plant. It has never been lined and has never dried completely out. I edged it with rocks and planted marginal perennials such as filipendula and water forget-me-not, which love the constant moisture. Did I mention that the frogs moved in right after it filled with water? They lay eggs each spring and sun themselves on the lily pads and rocks and eat any mosquitoes that hatch (we really don't have many mosquitoes at all -- because of the frogs?). Dragonflies swoop over the pond in the evening. I've even had a couple of visits from a great blue heron. In the early spring I've seen deer tracks in the mud under the water. So far, the deer have munched on the hosta that's way in the back of the back yard but miraculously have left the vegetable garden alone. I'm leaving the hosta there as a treat to them and a bribe to stay away from the veggies!
I will never have a formal pond with a fountain or goldfish. But I love my boggy pond and so do its residents and visitors. I don't need electricity and it pretty much takes care of itself.
By the way, can you quickly tell how many frogs are in the picture?
Five.