Or, A Bog Building Blog?
Friday I broke all my own records. I've been planning a bog garden, back by the little pond that has formed from sump-pumped ground water. It's never been this full before, but our water table rose this spring, and the pump runs constantly. If that pump ever fails we'll have a happy creek running through the north end of the basement! The perfect day - up to 70 degrees, and sunny. I got up early, ate my oatmeal, and loaded up - with a lawn chair, a small table, radio, tools, gloves, hat, pictures and books to guide me, a huge insulated cup of water, and optimism......which didn't last long. We live on top of the sand home of the mother of all greenbrier. Greenbrier has "nutlets" that support their growth, and they can be as much as 50 feet down, on sandy soils. Ours are surely much deeper, because I believe this greenbrier colony came from hell!
It's evil!
I'd crawl along pulling and cutting, stop to rest a minute, and there it would be, behind me, sneaking up with its evil green arms barbed with thorns! I spent 3 hours crawling, cutting, standing and tugging with my full body weight, cutting again......I destroyed the gloves because of the thorns. I destroyed the pruners on the tough stems, springing them so bad, they had to be thrown away. I'm covered from the elbows down with angry red scratches and a couple of cuts deep enough to bandage. I look tatooed! LOL! I WAS wearing a long sleeved heavy denim shirt, but the thorns got through it.
Even when I was "done" clearing the bog area, I kept finding greenbrier popped up where I know I had cut it all out.
That took 3 hours, solid work.
I started measuring where I wanted the bog to be, just "in front" (south) of the pond. The soil there is loose and rich so it wasn't hard digging, but I had to stop every 10 minutes or so and sit for a couple of minutes. Then I lined the hole with plastic and back filled with the good soil from the diggings. Had to add 2 wheel barrow loads of black soil on top of that, but Carrie dug and wheeled the dirt over to me, so I only had to shovel it in.
Filling the bog with water was easy, since the pond was refilling itself every minute or so. I just made a little ditch from pond to bog and didn't have to work at all for....maybe ...ten minutes.
The last job was moving Witchhazel, Spice bush, Pussy Willow and Honeysuckle from their unhappy homes, to the bog area where they really belong.
There are other plants waiting to be moved. They are also plants that have been growing very poorly in other, drier spots.
- Monarda Didyma [Bee Balm]
- [Joe Pye Weed]
- [Rhododendron]
- [Fern]
I bought several Primrose plants, a Painted Fern and a fun funny Funcus today, [oops! I meant Juncus!]
Friday I broke all my own records. I've been planning a bog garden, back by the little pond that has formed from sump-pumped ground water. It's never been this full before, but our water table rose this spring, and the pump runs constantly. If that pump ever fails we'll have a happy creek running through the north end of the basement! The perfect day - up to 70 degrees, and sunny. I got up early, ate my oatmeal, and loaded up - with a lawn chair, a small table, radio, tools, gloves, hat, pictures and books to guide me, a huge insulated cup of water, and optimism......which didn't last long. We live on top of the sand home of the mother of all greenbrier. Greenbrier has "nutlets" that support their growth, and they can be as much as 50 feet down, on sandy soils. Ours are surely much deeper, because I believe this greenbrier colony came from hell!
It's evil!
I'd crawl along pulling and cutting, stop to rest a minute, and there it would be, behind me, sneaking up with its evil green arms barbed with thorns! I spent 3 hours crawling, cutting, standing and tugging with my full body weight, cutting again......I destroyed the gloves because of the thorns. I destroyed the pruners on the tough stems, springing them so bad, they had to be thrown away. I'm covered from the elbows down with angry red scratches and a couple of cuts deep enough to bandage. I look tatooed! LOL! I WAS wearing a long sleeved heavy denim shirt, but the thorns got through it.
Even when I was "done" clearing the bog area, I kept finding greenbrier popped up where I know I had cut it all out.
That took 3 hours, solid work.
I started measuring where I wanted the bog to be, just "in front" (south) of the pond. The soil there is loose and rich so it wasn't hard digging, but I had to stop every 10 minutes or so and sit for a couple of minutes. Then I lined the hole with plastic and back filled with the good soil from the diggings. Had to add 2 wheel barrow loads of black soil on top of that, but Carrie dug and wheeled the dirt over to me, so I only had to shovel it in.
Filling the bog with water was easy, since the pond was refilling itself every minute or so. I just made a little ditch from pond to bog and didn't have to work at all for....maybe ...ten minutes.
The last job was moving Witchhazel, Spice bush, Pussy Willow and Honeysuckle from their unhappy homes, to the bog area where they really belong.
There are other plants waiting to be moved. They are also plants that have been growing very poorly in other, drier spots.
- Monarda Didyma [Bee Balm]
- [Joe Pye Weed]
- [Rhododendron]
- [Fern]
I bought several Primrose plants, a Painted Fern and a fun funny Funcus today, [oops! I meant Juncus!]
that will go in the bog. The Juncus will get a special setting I think. ...I just can't resist it! More later on that with pictures.Total: 6 hours from bog to blog. After it settles and I can cut and cover the plastic edges I'll take pictures.
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