Beginner Gardening: Tips or Ideas for Challenging Yard w/ Drainage Ditch?, 1 by absinthe27

absinthe27 wrote:
I have been living in my current home for a few years now, and I still have not figured out what to do with my "challenging" backyard. The entire yard is a third of an acre, and the back third of that is split through the middle by a drainage ditch that is usually empty, but as you can see in one of the pictures can sometimes get pretty high with water in the spring. The pictures are not very helpful, but you can kind of see the line where we usually stop mowing, and the yard extends up to the neighbor's fence on the other side of the ditch. When it rains in the summer, water sits in the low part and we can't get the mower across so most of the time we (and most of the other neighbors) leave the grass to grow until the city comes and mows it in July and late August. The ditch itself (about 8 feet across) is protected wetland and so we cannot build a fence (not that we would want to...it would be a little awkward looking and would be underwater at some point during the year) or have any landscaping in that section. Since it is protected wetland the city is okay with us not mowing it, but one neighbor next to me mows their yard so mine looks a little unkempt in comparison.

I've been considering planting wildflowers or trees on the other side but can't figure out what the best approach would be. Does anyone have suggestions or landscaping ideas? Has anyone dealt with this or a similar type of ditch running through their yard? I would greatly appreciate any suggestions!