patchwork-bog

[partisangardener]

Maybe someone is interested in my variation  of a natural looking boggarden.
Thats how it looked at the startlast year in August:


As you see I used mortar tubs for most of the area.
Thats the way it looked in May this year after 10 month.


now, view from path into the bog.


I intend to show how I did the covering of the tubs and other plastic stuff and what plants I grow there. The right front corner is shaded and I grow there mainly Cypripedium and other more woodland plants.

[partisangardener]

This is what the orchid corner looks like.



The entire bog is elevated; because I don’t want the surrounding area contaminate my Patchwork bog, in case of heavy rain.
It is lined with some old granite border stones I got some years ago from a road reconstruction.

[partisangardener]

I used for the gaps between the different tubs pond liner covered with wood, stones frost resistant ceramic or coconutfiber.
Pictures explain more than my clumsy English is able to.

[partisangardener]

When the front tub is filled with substrate the same place looks like that.


The lime free sand is only a cover. Some of the tubs have holes one or two hands below surface. In this case there is a bucket filled with water and sphagnum in the space between.
In the next case I put a mound of peat on it.

[stevebooth]

That sir is very very impressive and natural loking. An excellent project well executed, with great ideas and results. You must have put a deal of thought into that and be very pleased with how it has turned out.
I hope it continues to to naturalise and that you post more pictures for us to look at as it does so.
Thanks
Steve

[partisangardener]

Thank you Steve
I will continue.
Now I will show how I did cope with the pond margins.
At first two steep parts.

[partisangardener]

Final adaptions


The other tub bordering the pond looks like this



These solutions are my ideas, but I think others will have found similar ones.
The brown stuff is made of coconutfibre. I got from a friend, it was used for packing maschine-parts. Stands many years outside. In the end roots and moss will substitute it.

[partisangardener]

I have introduced quite a lot of plants into this bog. Quite unusual ones. Like Mimosa nutallii the only hardy mimosa from the southern parries of North America..
One plant survives in a friend’s garden for the last 4 years (Zone 6b).
Mine are younger.
There is one germinating now at a well drained place in the bog, sown two years ago in a pot, which I dumped there.



Another plant which has itself introduced into that bog is Cynoglossum nervosum from the Himalaya. I have some adult plants which flower each year set seeds and there is never a seedling.
Now there are several in my bog.
But I don’t know how the managed to get there.
One or two will have the chance to flower in the bog, the rest will be replanted somewhere else. The flower is unbelievable blue.



I added a lot of dead wood to create shaded places for some Pinguicula and have some structure to keep the sarracenias straight.

[partisangardener]

If you are curious you might have a look at the pictures in the German forum.
forum.carnivoren.org/index.php?/topic/36569-patchworkmoorbeet-erweiterbares-moorbeet-im-baukastenstil/
Most of ist will be released here in time. Some ideas did work some not.
Here I will only mention the successful ones.

One success is Mentha requienii. Very small leafs and tiny flowers. Introduced itself into the bog.


It has a strong mint fragrance.

[stevebooth]

Great effect Axel.

Are you using the coconut matting as a wicking mechanism for watering the tubs or simply as a building block for disguising teh sides of your pots?

Cheers
Steve

[partisangardener]

Hello Steve
the coconut matting won’t work as a wicking device because it is soaked in latex; I only had that type. There is always some pool liner underneath which directs the overflow into the next following vessel.
It is shown in the picture but not explained enough.

But moss will eventually grow into it and then work as a wick. It already does.
The pool liner is always fixed under the rim of the different vessels to catch every overflow. One way is the use of PVC glue.

I tried to rub some peat or lime free clay into the mats to enhance moss growth, and then stuck small pieces of different types of moss onto it. It worked at some places.
Because it did not work everywhere I dispersed some fine white quartz sand onto the moss pieces and most of them started to grow. It took sometimes month until they started to do so.
Some species looked quite brown and dead until they re grew out of the dead looking fibre.
I will show in pictures my favourite mosses for this special endeavour.
Whenever I saw a new looking species on a piece of bark or lime free stone, I collected small pieces and tried it on different places in my bog.
A public compost collecting place near my studio is an interesting source of different materials.
There I found my most interesting moss. It was used for some Christmas decoration, and afterwards dumped there. Was already very dry and even turned brown partially.
It has a very fine structure.

I don’t know where it grows naturally. I haven’t found it jet somewhere. Strange for this amplitude of habitats it does well.


The coin is a one € and 22 mm across this is 0.87 in. Maybe it is Ctenidium molluscum, but I am not sure this one seems to be smaller.

[partisangardener]

Here is the same place with the piece of wood and the coconut mat after a year.

[stevebooth]

Hi Axel
It has matured really well and very quickly, it creates a very nice effect. Are you going to provide any protection over winter or will you lift the plants?

Cheers
Steve

[partisangardener]

Hi Steve I will probably cover some of the Dionae with pineneedles and probably some twigs of the same kind.
Some Sarracenia like minor, psittacina and a few others might get the same protection.
Most of them have now a good cover of life sphagnum which should be enough.
We experience here winters with -20 and below for some Weeks in a row. Often without snow.
In such a cold spell I will do some extra protection.
Cheers
Axel

[partisangardener]

Part of my bog is made of floating Styrofoam.
First I thought a fish-box out of Styrofoam might fit into the corner of the pond.
This was my first try.

some substrate filled in and the white outline covered with some coconutfiber (leached out for some time before)
Would habe been probably quite ok. But I decided to do something else.
But it looked too square for me. Therefore I took a board of more durable Styrofoam, cut out some of it and linked the cut off part with some steel wire to one end..
This is the way it looked at that stage.

If you look close there is the above flaoting box still in use at that time.