Well that is fun, because I’ve been doing something similar in my backyard where a drainage easement which was supposed to be left natural was bulldozed and sodded, but most of the time it was just mud. In order to get more privacy and restore the area, I got a very coarse variety of the red twig dogwood. I staked down an ash log and backfilled dirt to raise the ground level and create a well defined edge. The dogwoods quickly went under the log and resurfaced in the easement where they started catching leaves. The plants mulched themselves and the runoff started creating little meanders and potholes that looked natural rather than just eroded, and the roots sieved out the rocks so suddenly there was a bit of a gravel stream bed. I’ve extended it just by letting the stems get tall and then bending them to the ground where they root.
Also in the mix is an elderberry, which I am going to dig up up and divide for planting down the easement. It spreads freely in the mucky soil.
I also have a deciduous holly (Sparkleberry) that likes those boggy conditions, but it is really getting crowded out. I was looking at satellit photos of a canoe trail in NC, and the pictures taken in winter showed pink blotches. It turned they were Ilex, which were visible from space.
The nice thing about all these plants is that they have berries that bird love. Consider also the countless varieties of Vibernum and the colorful beautyberry, which are also bird food.
