Pond vs. Garden Bog?

[Aggressorblue]

Hello!

As I’m doing my research on my first backyard first water feature on my property, I’m curious to know if a pond is the right path.

As some background,
Going from left to right in the photo: my property sits at the bottom of a hill (those trees at left in the image are at the base) and then my yard itself has a gentle slope further down from the base of that hill to the right.

At the area just right of the tress is an area that get’s very swampy during heavy rains (as that appears to be where a lot of the water runs off from a pathway running along the base of the hill) before then starting to spread out across the yard and become less concentrated.

My thought was to replace this area with a pond designed to hold standing water, but also feature both spill way in from the base of the hill, and a spill way out for overflow water when it rains.

The water out would be to-be built stream that will channel water away from the area, and likely into another pond that would be built at the bottom of the yard (area for that not shown in the pic). That pond itself would then spill into a natural bog that meets with a river branch.

Among the goals for this pond is to attract more frogs/turtles/salamanders to the yard, as the natural bog on my property doesn’t always have standing water, and I wanted somewhere that tadpoles could come in and be safe, without fear that their habitat would dry up. I’d also like to be able to run a waterfall into the pond.

I’m wondering though if a garden bog makes more sense than a garden pond in this case though, given the constant influx and drainage of rain water. A garden bog also wouldn’t allow for consistent running of a waterfall, either.

Open to all thoughts and input!

 

[JBtheExplorer]

I wonder if a rain garden or natural wetland is more of what would work for that area, depending on how wet it gets. If it's always wet or usually wet, you may have a wetland there that just needs a bit of restoration work. If it's only wet shortly after rains and dries up, a rain garden would probably be perfect for that area.

I have a rain garden that captures water from my garage roof. It's usually dry, but often has standing water after it rains. I planted native plant species that can handle wetter areas while also being ok in drier conditions, like Great Blue Lobelia. There's been a lot of wildlife in my rain garden since I added it last year. Frogs and toads hunt in it, hummingbird drink nectar from the native plants, and Monarchs lay eggs on my Swamp Milkweed. It's a lot of fun to watch.

 

[GBBUDD]

nice capture jb