Bog garden?

 
Has anyone constructed a bog garden and been successful?  Any tips?  We
have an area of ground which tends to be a bit damp (although not
actually boggy).  I was thinking of surrounding it with willow for
shelter, which I would cut down regularly to create bright winter stems,
and then putting a perforated pond liner sheet into a hole to make a
good boggy bit.  I like the idea of planting a willow bower to sit in
too.

What construction tips do you have?  What have been your easiest plants?
I'm in Fife, five miles from the coast, on (I assume) somewhat acidic
soil.  The proposed bog garden site is at least forty yards from the
house, so the willows are not a problem.

Thanks

Laura




--
Laura Corin

 

Don't plant willow near water unless you have water to spare, they will grab
the lot, in fact they are excellent if you have wet ground and want it
drier. Dogwoods would be better for stem colour but even they will drink a
lot

Also before doing a willow bower (I assume you mean a living one?) take a
look at one, the new growth grows straight up and for me ruins the effect,
they look great in winter and just after pruning but the rest of the time 6'
of vertical growth looks silly. This I admit may prove a minority opinion
but at least be sure you don't mind the effect (its your garden not mine)
before going to the trouble

--
Charlie, Gardening in Cornwall
Holders of National Collections of Clematis viticella
and Lapageria rosea cvs
http://www.roselandhouse.co.uk  

 wrote:

DON'T put in a liner.
I did that, and the only plants that were suffering from drought were
the ones in the Bog garden, they couldn't get their roots down to the
natural moisture.
Add extra (dare I say it?) Peat  and I'd add a load of awater-
retaining polymer as well to help cope with dry weather.

 On Mon, 4 Jul 2011 22:30:02 +0000, Laura Corin


I have a bog garden attached to my pond. The waterproof liner runs
under both, so isn't perforated. If you dig down about eight inches in
the bog you come to water.

There are two ways you can make a bog garden alone. The first is as
you suggest, a hollow in the soil lined with a sheet of heavy-duty
polythene which you then perforate to let it drain a bit. This will
give you a damp garden rather than a true bog garden. The second way
is to do as the first but not to perforate the liner. This will give
you a much boggier garden (given sufficient rain), but you should
arrange some sort of overflow to siphon excess water out of the
bottom, otherwise it will become stagnant down there. This is easily
done by first putting a few inches of gravel into the bottom, and then
putting a bit of old plastic waste pipe with one end in the gravel and
the other up and through the side of the liner about six inches below
the soil surface. This will mean that the top six inches of soil are
very moist but not saturated, while the lower part is always
saturated. When it rains and the bog overflows through the pipe, the
water will come from the bottom of the bog, thus ensuring a throughput
of water rather than stagnation. A variation on this is to use a
pre-formed shape such as a discarded fiberglass pond former sunk in
the ground, or even an old bath, using the overflow hole to take the
overflow pipe through.

The soil you put in the bog should be very rich in organic matter. I
used roughly equal parts garden soil and garden compost.

Plants that grow well in my bog garden as follows: candelabra primulas
such as P. beesiana, P. bulleyana, P. florindae (giant cowslip), P.
Inverewe, P. Miller's Crimson; astilbes; bog iris such as I. sibirica,
I. kaempferi, I. lewisiana; some lobelias such as L. syphilitica, L.
cardinalis Queen Victoria, L. tupa and L. x gerardii Vedrariensis;
Trollius (Globe flower); Lysichitum (skunk cabbage) but gets quite
large; Mimulus (monkey musk), but I find M. luteum, the yellow one,
invasive; Lythrum salicaria, and so the list goes on. My bog garden is
overcrowded, but as I develop preferences, I discard the things I like
less. An image of my bog garden last year at
http://i54.tinypic.com/2l8i59h.jpg

Over the years I've bought several books on ponds and bog gardens. The
one I refer to most and would recommend is 'The Stapely Book of Water
Gardens' by Stanley Russell, published by David and Charles, 1985. Out
of print but available second hand, see http://tinyurl.com/6k9g6rt  
It has a chapter on bog gardens and a diagram of the second type I
described, as well as stuff on ponds etc.


--
 
Chris

Gardening in West Cornwall overlooking the sea.
Mild, but very exposed to salt gales