Greetings,

Of course it's spring in the Northern hemisphere, and with it
for this area of the world (Midwest, US) comes quite a bit of
rain. With the rain comes a muddy, soft area of my lawn that
my lawnmower slithers through, I slide through, and the
mosquitos lay eggs in.

The area in question is roughly oval, 10' x 15'. The yard is
slightly inclined from one side (neighbor to left) to the other
(neighbor to right). I believe water is draining into my yard,
then slowly passing through to the neighbor to my right's yard.
I do not want to increase rate of drainage to my neighbor, as
this would probably incite some not to nice feelings

Opinions on how to rectify this problem? My wife and I are
considering putting a pond there, but I don't think it would
solve the drainage problems if it's a sealed-bottom pool.

I'm not a landscaper. I don't even play one on Usenet
I've got crazy ideas on how to solve this, such as stripping
the lawn in the whole area down a foot, layering in some
crushed stone, and putting soil back on top of it. But,
as I have no experience with such matters, I have no
confidence this would work. I've also thought of putting
a bunch of soggy-soil loving plants there, but the area
only gets about 3-4 hours of sunlight a day, if that.
Soggy soil and not a bunch of light seems a contradiction
for a plant to survive in?

-Geoff