Building a Backyard Pond
A daughter’s school project becomes a group effort, with a backyard pond bringing biodiversity—and a family—together
- Text and photos by Steven David Johnson
- Habitat Gardening
- Mar 26, 2026
Reflected in the surface of the pond she built, Maggie Johnson (inset) regularly observes the life that inhabits this small ecosystem (above).
ON BALMY EVENINGS IN THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY OF VIRGINIA, gray treefrog trills mix with green frog twangs at Maggie’s Pond. Edged by native plants, our small backyard frog pond hosts a diverse array of wildlife. It’s a rich sensory environment that draws our family, friends and neighbors back to listen, observe and wonder.
If you time-traveled to our rural backyard circa summer 2017, you would find yourself transported to an expanse of patchy lawn accompanied by the sound of crickets—and not much else. Things changed in the fall of that year, when our then-14-year-old daughter, Maggie, started building a pond as a project for her high school agriculture class. After researching the design, she dug out the pond, and by spring 2018 it was filled with water. Soon, the rest of the family got into the act by helping to landscape the edges with soil, rocks and plants. Before we even finished this process, the wildlife arrived.
“Just a few weeks after the pond was filled, the first American toads found it,” Maggie, now 23, says. “Since then, the pond has continued to grow and evolve every year.”
While Maggie was building the pond, my wife, Anna Maria, and I were learning more about the importance of native landscaping for supporting biodiversity. Around the pond, we planted pollinator favorites such as buttonbush, joe-pye weed and pickerelweed, and eventually we had the garden designated a Certified Wildlife Habitat® by the National Wildlife Federation. Later we added white water lilies to the pond itself to provide shelter for amphibians and macroinvertebrates. (See NWF’s Native Plant Finder for regional suggestions and purchase plants through Garden for Wildlife.)
As a result of the project, we went from seeing an occasional wandering toad to now having a fully functioning ecosystem. For me, this is a story of hope. Tackling the extinction crisis can seem overwhelming, but everyday folks can transform their backyards into an oasis for wildlife. See the slideshow below for tips on creating your own pond.
Steven David Johnson is a Virginia-based conservation photographer.
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Reflected in the surface of the pond she built as a school project, Maggie regularly observes and draws the life that inhabits this small but vibrant ecosystem.
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When selecting plants for the area around the pond, Anna Maria and I consider what will benefit the pollinators and other visitors to the garden. Here, a silvery checkerspot perches on blue mistflower, a wildflower native to much of the eastern United States.
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Cardinal flower provides life-giving sips of nectar to ruby-throated hummingbirds.
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Another benefit of the pond: Nonnative praying mantises are no match for a green frog ambush.
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Building a pond doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. Maggie began by staking out a circular area roughly 12 feet in diameter then dug the pond by hand.
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We spent about $160 on a pond liner, plants and gardening tools. Each year, we add about $100 of plants, and in summer 2025, we invested $600 in a fence to keep out cats, helping the frog population. We’ve also found that with a well-functioning ecosystem, the pond doesn’t need a filter.
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Since creating the pond and garden, we’ve been treated to many surprising and beautiful moments. At first glance, a hovering snowberry clearwing could be mistaken for a tiny hummingbird or a large bee, but it is actually a type of sphinx moth that pollinates flowers, like this great blue lobelia, as it searches for nectar.
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One day, Maggie called me over after noticing how a six-spotted fishing spider on the surface of the pond was creating this petal-shaped shadow, echoing the surrounding wildflowers.
