You can't beat a former swimming pool, filled with countless truckloads of dirt, for the worst drainage possible. When I jackhammered several holes in the bottom of my emptied pool, I figured the drainage would be like holes in the bottom of a plastic plant container. I was wrong.

I ended up with a bog garden. Or to be honest, it's a swamp. The mushy clay soil feels like quicksand in some places, a soaked sponge in others. There are puddles of standing water in any low section after a rain storm. I'm trying to build up the grade with more soil, but it seems like it could be dissolving in the water. This is humid semi-tropical Houston bottomland, renowned for its flooding.

Mosquito colonies deserve a paragraph of their own. I should name my yard West Nile Bank. You can almost hear them breeding, day and night. They defend every inch of their home. I've worn long pants and long shirt doused with insect repellant and have had them somehow get under my clothing, possibly burrowing their way through the threads. I'm thinking a beekeepers suit may not stop them.

The frogs or toads invade every spring and stick around for at least several months, croaking a deafening chorus, night and day, during and after any rain storm. You can hear their serenade through the walls of my house, all night long. If you disturb them closely, they just splash and swim away in their watery enclaves, only to start their songs up minutes later.

I assume there are bats at night. I can see happy, mosquito-loving lizards almost every day. I've only seen snakes a couple times. If gators could get to my yard, I wouldn't count them out.

I've never seen such dense or fast-growing vegetation. Ever. The photo above shows some of the growth only about 3 years old. You can see part of a Loblolly Pine, taller than me, that started as a volunteer seedling. You can see a couple Wax Myrtle bushes, planted as seedlings, now taller than me, thick with leaves down to their bases, sprawling out lush limbs in all directions. You can see random Oak, Elm, Tupelo, and other volunteer seedlings in the thicket. You can the former spa on the left, now exploding with 2-year-old Sweet Gum trees, one of them about 5 feet tall. You can see a carpet of Moneywort weeds covering the leaf litter.

You can see hints of the Pickerel Rush that I bought from a water garden store. It spreads aggressively and perpetually comes back from the dead, just like Horsetail Rush, Elephant Ears, Umbrella Grass, Irises, Philodendron, etc. I plucked out all the others and kept the Pickerel Rush because it blooms bright purple brushes during the 6 warm months of the year and attracts bees, dragonflies, or hummingbirds almost every day.

It seems that nature will try to use every last drop of water for some form of plant or animal life, if given the chance. I can't decide if we should give her the chance. Should we embrace the swamp in our landscapes of tomorrow? Or should we all stick with turf grass lawns, concrete patios, and bug-free exotic ornamental plants?