Maggie Johnson dug a pond in her Virginia backyard in 2017 for a high school agriculture project; it now attracts toads, butterflies and hummingbirds. The surrounding garden is a Certified Wildlife Habitat, and Johnson says it keeps evolving.
Johnson was 14 when she designed and dug the pond for her class. It filled in spring 2018, and American toads arrived within weeks. Family members landscaped around it with pollinator plants, including buttonbush, joe-pye weed and pickerelweed, and later added white water lilies.
The project began with $160 worth of tools and supplies, including a pond liner and plants. The family adds about $100 in plants each year and spent $600 last year on a fence to keep out predators such as cats. Her father, conservation photographer Steven David Johnson, documented the project for National Wildlife magazine as an example of supporting wildlife at home.
