A Bog Reborn

Going with the flow, they built a pond, and the creatures came

ONE OF THE FIRST things Sara and Sam Van Fleet noticed about their new property on Vashon Island was the giant willow tree, a clue that this was a very damp piece of land. On the property's high ridge sat an old fishing cottage moved up from the beach long ago. The Van Fleets, who had never owned or restored a house, bought the place and started in on a year-long remodel, completed in 1999. They soon discovered that the low-lying depression below the house, thick with meadow grass, was an enormous swamp.

Instead of filling in the mucky mess, they chose to work with it, turning the sticky clay bog into a mecca for wildlife. After taking a course taught by Washington state wildlife biologist Russell Link (author of "Living with Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest"), they set in to restore habitat on their 2.6 mostly wetland acres. The centerpiece of the garden is an 80-by-45-foot pond, a 10-year-anniversary present the Van Fleets gave to each other.

Early on in their project, the couple made a policy not to introduce any animals to the property. Turns out they didn't need to. "In the spring it's deafening," says Sam of the chorus of frogs that have taken up residence in the pond, along with salamanders and turtles. Plants burgeon up in the margins, and birds bathe in the shallows. The sun glints off the surface, ruffled up by the slightest breeze. It all looks so natural and age-old it's hard to believe that only a couple of years ago the Van Fleets were hauling around a 1,500-pound sheet of rubber lining, tons of sand, landscape fabric, soil and stone to form what today is home to a multitude of creatures. "I hit 70 birds on my list last summer," says Sam, who keeps binoculars handy to appreciate the wildlife that regularly visits the pond.

The couple realized from the start that the gentle undulation of their acreage had potential. Sam's trained eye as an architectural photographer helped in designing the garden. Sara plans the colors and shapes of the plants, while Sam says he's the reductive force, responsible for pruning, culling and editing the garden. "The longer I'm here, the more I leave alone," he says. "I've even scaled back on the mowing because junkos nest on the ground, and other birds nest in thickets, so I just leave them."

Ross Johnson of DIG Nursery gutted out the pond area, shaped it and brought in the rocks. "He looked like a teenager with a joystick and a video game out there on his machine," says Sara. The pond is 3 feet deep in the center and ringed with shelves for plants. There's a little beach for butterflies and mud wasps to puddle about.

Plants were carefully chosen to attract wildlife; ornamentals are mixed in close to the house, and mostly native plants farther out. "I'm very textural," says Sara, who has a Ph.D in cultural anthropology. "I'm intimidated by flowery things." She put in a multitude of berried plants for the birds, including mahonias, snowberries, Myrica california, callicarpa and viburnums. Red twig dogwoods and Arctic willows swarm the edges of the pond, while waterlilies drift on its mirrored surface. Song sparrows use the lily pads as stepping stones, snacking on aphids as they cross the water. Dragonflies hover, their metallic wings glinting brightly, and the air is alive with bird flight.

"We still pinch ourselves on a regular basis," says Sara. "How were we lucky enough to land here?"

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net. Jacqueline Koch is a writer and photographer living on Whidbey Island.