Bog Gardens Create an Ecosystem of Beauty in Your Backyard

Once a small, specialty niche where only hard-core gardeners would go, bog gardens have become increasingly popular in recent years because of the variety of beautiful and exotic plants they can add to your garden, and because, once built, they are easy to maintain.

What is a Bog Garden?
In nature, a bog is a spongy, waterlogged area, where the soil is slightly acidic, thanks to the peat and sphagnum moss growing there. It provides a home for distinctive, water-loving shrubs and herbs that are specially adapted to handling the acidic quality of the soil. Bogs form in glacial lake beds over hundreds of years.

Most folks don't live near these areas, so a bog garden is a way of replicating this unique environment through the use of excavation and irrigation in your own backyard. Bog gardens are often installed alongside of backyard ponds, but they are in fact very different in the number and kinds of nutrients they provide.

Building a Bog Garden
A bog garden takes a bit of work to create. Here is an overview of the major steps:

1. The area must first be dug and excavated, so that the right soil and drainage conditions can be created. You want to dig two or three feet deep, so that there is room for your bog plants' roots. Also, the larger an area you have, the better, since small beds tend to dry out quickly.

2. Lay down a sheet of plastic (4-8mm thick). This will keep the water from draining and dissipating. You will want to use a single sheet, as water will leak through the seams of multiple, overlapping sheets. Some users prefer a layer of gravel and hard clay to retain water. For proper, regulated drainage, put holes around the edge of the liner, about a foot below the surface. This will keep your plants' crowns from rotting.

3. The soil for a bog garden can be a mixture of the native soil you have dug up with compost, or any number of specialty soils, such as sphagnum, with sand. The particular species you are planting will determine the type of soil you want to use. Check with a gardening professional for tips and advice in this area.

4. Once you have filled your bog garden, you will want to let it settle, keeping it well-watered, for anywhere from a week to a month before you plant. From then on, maintenance involves regular watering, but little weeding, since most weeds don't survive such moist conditions.

Bog Garden Plants
The best plants for a bog garden are those that require plenty of moisture. These can be your regular garden plants, or, for a more authentic bog atmosphere, plants that prefer the acidity of a real bog. Some examples include:

• Giant rhubarb (gunnera manicata), which has big, umbrella-shaped leaves and prickly stems.
• Powdered primrose (primula pulverulenta), which feature pretty flowers in tiers up their stems.
• Nana (darmera peltata), which produce pink flowers and saucer-shaped leaves that turn fiery in autumn.
• Queen Victoria (lobelia), featuring bright red leaves topped with crimson flowers.

Bog garden plants are particularly good at attracting hummingbirds, butterflies, and other friendly creatures, and many owners find that they are able to create an entire ecosystem in their backyard.