FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Im going to start building a bog garden in my back yard. I wanted to incorporate a pond/water garden area with the bog, but I'm not quite sure how to do that on a budget and limited space (I have a small back yard). I went to Lowe's today and found a bunch of stuff I need and wrote down the prices, pretty cheap so far. If I must I will drop the pond idea. If anyone has a bog garden or even a nice pond area, I'd love to see it. I'll give a rundown of my plan once I get back from work tonight. Construction should start Sunday and I'm going to do a before and after and make a progress thread, a bog log if you will Any advice, criticisms and suggestions are welcome. (And yes I have done a ton of research before anyone asks.)

Hi Adelaide
I have a number of bogs and a pond but I keep the two things separate, mainly because I have fish and plants in the pond, which, should balance each other out a s far as adding nutrients (fish poo) and absorbing nutrients (growing the pond plants) go, however in the real world they don’t balance due to decomposition of plant materials excess fish food etc, so unless I keep my carnivorous plants (I grow mostly Sarracenia) out of the pond water they will be growing in a nutrient rich soup, which can make them grow distorted or even kill them.

So I would tend to keep them separate if possible either by building a separate bog within the pond volume or putting the bog adjacent to and around the pool. Although having said that I have seen people who have put up posts showing carnivorous plants in planters in ponds, but whether they survive any length of time (I’m talking years here) they never seem to say, they are normally new set ups or plants that have been put in on a whim.

Is it possible youy can get a TDS reading from someone who has a pool similar to the sort you are thinking of making? If so this will tell you all you need to know, it will need to be consistently below 40 (this is too high in my opinion for carnivorous plants) but preferably below 20, I know my pond is higher than that.

Hope this helps
Steve

Anything below 50PPM should be ok, ideally the lower the better.