The first thing you need to do is to check with your local Soil & Water Management to see if they would let you put a pond there. The second thing to check is your local code to see how deep an unfenced pond can be.

tj

Thanks Tj, that was very helpful.

I agree with tsugajunkie. In my opinion, I would scrap the pond idea in that area. if it is consistently wet that may get into a lot of 'what ifs", like water under the liner (if you built it that way), runoff laced with pesticides, existing underground piping & what not. What you could do, if you want to keep it natural looking & if it's consistently wet/damp, is plant some cattails, water iris, rushes & reed grasses. The frogs don't need much water to breed in. I've seen the in puddles during the wet spring season.

Maybe the pond idea is too much.. My dog poops and pees all over the lawn, and I don't know what that will do to the run-off basin...

Nearby, there is another runoff basin with a ton of cattails.. I guess that's what the local water authority does.. And there are a ton of frogs there in breeding season, and then they seem to jump into the sewer to hibernate..

Are cattails native to PA?

They are in all the wetlands. Native? Not sure but they have been around forever. they are native now, :)

How about a Rain Garden if it stays consistently moist or you could just put a flower bed in that area with natives that can handle seasonal flooding. I would be wary of planting cattails-they can be "vigorous".

Rhonda

How about Cardinal Flower? I hear they like wet feet and would have color.

Cardinal flower will draw hummingbirds for sure and they can tolerate not being wet all the time as well.

definitely a Rain Garden which could be beautiful, a haven for birds, butterflies and pollinators of all sorts, and will help the Chesapeake Bay. Check these out:

http://www.rainscaping.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/home.home/index.htm

http://www.lowimpactdevelopment.org/raingarden_design/index.htm