Matt Freed, Post-Gazette A pond in Susan and Robert Clark's back yard almost reaches their deck. Click photo for larger image. Photo Journal: Great Gardens Contest Winners - 2004

When Susan Clark moved into her husband's home in Verona in 1996, there wasn't much to the landscape. The 100-by-150-foot hillside property was a blank canvas waiting to be filled. Although neither was an avid gardener, Robert did have an interest in building a pond.

They constructed the pond, and more. These days, water covers two-thirds of the back yard. More than 80 goldfish dart among the irises, lilies and other water plants, shaded by lush plantings of flowers and splashed by two waterfalls. The rest of the yard is given over to vegetables, which Susan uses to make salsa and pickled beets.

Reaching almost to the pond's edge is a deck, where the couple enjoy meals under a canvas awning and spend warm evenings listening to the trickle and splashing of the water. The work -- an exercise in love and togetherness -- garnered them a tie for third place in the nonprofessional category of the 2004 Great Gardens competition.

It never would have happened if Susan's sister had not urged them to enter.

"I never was much of a gardener," she says, laughing. "I decided in 1996 to do a vegetable garden and found out how much I enjoyed it."

Once the seed was sown, Susan proceeded to educate herself by spending the winter months reading everything garden-related that she could get her hands on. Then, the day after her son's high school graduation, Robert took a rototiller to the yard in hopes of making a pond.

"We had an idea of how to go about it," she says. "We knew we had to have it level, so he took some lime and mapped out a design."

When that first pond and waterfall were in, they planted the surrounding area with plants like sedum, ajuga, buddleia, Siberian iris, Russian sage and ornamental grasses. A bald cypress tree is her favorite.

Matt Fr, Post-Gazette Two-thirds of Susan and Robert Clark's garden in Verona is covered by ponds. Click photo for larger image.

Then Robert decided he wanted to add another waterfall. So they went to work again.

"It took the entire summer to get together," says Susan. With more pond, more plantings were necessary. Susan's research had given her very specific ideas about what she wanted to plant.

"We make sure we choose specific cultivars. Every week it changes color -- the sedum turns yellow and then red. It seems like there is quite a bit of purple and we have Rudbeckia blooming, and in a couple of weeks the purple asters will turn the back of the garden a beautiful purple."

Susan says she puts in about 12 hours a week keeping the area manicured.

"But I don't consider that work. I consider it therapy," she says.

The pond maintenance is a joint effort. The yellow water iris do so well that they required dividing this year. It was a difficult and dirty job, but both pitched in and, with the help of Susan's sister, got the job done.

The fish are multiplying as well.

"We started with nine fish," says Susan. "We have three koi and the rest are Shebunkins."

Though frogs eat some of the smaller fish and raccoons occasionally visit, the pond is fairly free of problems. No mechanical filtration is used.

"We clean it once every four or five years," says Susan. "We do clean the waterfalls in the spring. That's about it. The water filters through the plants and it stays pretty clear."

In the winter, they put netting over the water to keep the leaves out, and Robert installed a heated rod to keep a hole in the ice, allowing toxic gases to escape.

The pond looks finished, but Susan still plans some tweaking.

"We have plans next spring to redo the far edge of the pond; I'm just not happy with it," she says.

"I want to remove some shrubs and put some low-growing things [in]. We want to add additional color for July and August. Those seem to be the months when we don't have as much color."

She also plans to revamp the butterfly garden and extend the beds up the side of the house, taking away more lawn. Clearly, the effort brings joy and great satisfaction to the couple.

"Just to be able to sit out there and listen to the waterfall," says Susan. "It's so pretty. It's just a nice atmosphere."