My bog garden
Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2017 3:13 am
Here's my bog garden. It's 3x5 feet and 18 inches deep. It is lined with a flexible fish pond liner and has a drainage system that keeps the water level around 6 inches below the surface. The soil is a mix of peat and perlite with a top layer of sphagnum. It is 3 years old and 4 growing seasons. There are a bunch of Sarracenia in there along with companion plants and bog orchids. The sarracenia were all purchased but most of the companion plants were taken from flourishing populations on private property. Some like the Meadow Beauties are basically weeds found in ditches on the side if the road. They look great in a bog garden when their numbers are kept in check with annual maintenance.
There are some bog orchids in there that I rescued from a neighbor's pasture. They would have been mowed and sprayed with weed killer. I have since convinced her to let me maintain that area of her property because of the plants there. I found 5 orchids there this spring that survived the mowing. Only two survived the cows and deer eating them and one flowered but not very well. Hopefully they recover. All the plants on the pond dam are gone forever it looks like. One man's trash is another's treasure I guess.
There are some bog orchids in there that I rescued from a neighbor's pasture. They would have been mowed and sprayed with weed killer. I have since convinced her to let me maintain that area of her property because of the plants there. I found 5 orchids there this spring that survived the mowing. Only two survived the cows and deer eating them and one flowered but not very well. Hopefully they recover. All the plants on the pond dam are gone forever it looks like. One man's trash is another's treasure I guess.