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Maggie Johnson built a backyard pond in 2017 as a high school agriculture project
The pond has become a thriving ecosystem, attracting toads, butterflies, hummingbirds, and more wildlife
The family’s garden is now a Certified Wildlife Habitat and serves as a model for supporting biodiversity at home
What started off as a 14-year-old’s school project has now become an evolving “oasis for wildlife” in one Virginia family’s backyard.
Dubbed “Maggie’s Pond,” the now-thriving ecosystem dates back to 2017, when Maggie Johnson, now 23, took on the task of building a pond in her own backyard for her high school agriculture class, according to a report written by her dad, conservation photographer Steven David Johnson, for the National Wildlife magazine.
Based in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Maggie transformed a piece of the patchy lawn in their rural backyard — which invited mostly crickets and “not much else” at the time, her dad wrote — into a frog pond that now boasts a “diverse array of wildlife.”
While Maggie brainstormed the pond’s design herself and got to work digging it out in the designated space, it quickly became a family effort after the spot filled with water by spring 2018.
Stock image of a silvery checkerspot butterfly
Credit: Getty
Signs of wildlife began to show up shortly after: “Just a few weeks after the pond was filled, the first American toads found it,” Maggie said.
As she continued to build, her mom, Anna Maria, and dad began to research more about “the importance of native landscaping for supporting biodiversity,” Steven wrote. The rest of the family also helped out with the landscaping process, including lining the edge of the pond with soil, rocks and plants.
They planted “pollinator favorites” around the pond — including plants like buttonbush, joe-pye weed and pickerelweed — and later incorporated white water lilies into the landscape. Per Steven, they intentionally added these plants to the pond as they help “provide shelter for amphibians and macroinvertebrates.”
In addition to toads, the pond has since invited other wildlife, including silvery checkerspot butterflies, ruby-throated hummingbirds and snowberry clearwing moths.
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Their garden surrounding the pond has even been designated a Certified Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation. The site continues “to grow and evolve every year,” Maggie says.
The entire project began by using just $160 worth of tools, including a pond liner, plants and gardening tools. Steven says they put $100 towards it each year to incorporate more plants, while they made their biggest investment of $600 last year to install a fence around it and keep out unwanted predators like cats.
For the proud dad, the project serves as “a story of hope” against the “extinction crisis,” as well as an example of how others can create a place for wildlife to thrive right in their own backyards. To this day, it’s a place not only Maggie continues to admire, but also a tranquil spot that brings their whole family — and even friends and neighbors — together.
PEOPLE has reached out to the Johnson family for comment.
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