Bog Day

At the library today, I hit paydirt!

I found "The Natural Water Garden", published by Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

It's so helpful I may buy it from Amazon. It's also available for 1 penny, and that's an important factor.

The list of plants I found in this book that will grow best in bog gardens was amazing!

Among the list -

Pussy Willow [Salix discolor]

Mine is actually a "ditch willow", dug from a ditch along one of the dirt roads.

Cinnamon Fern [Osmunda cinnamomea]

Astilbis

Cattails [Typha latifolia]

Witchhazel [Hamamelis]

Blue Flag Iris [Iris versicolor ]

Spicebush [Lindera benzoin]

Ostrich Fern [Matteuccia struthiopteris]

Joe Pye Weed [Eupatorium]

Daylily [Hemerocallis]

Bee Balm [Monarda]

These plants are all already growing on our property and many of them very poorly. I won't even have to buy anything to start a beautiful bog garden.

I can hardly wait! I'll be out there before sunrise tomorrow the way I feel now!

Joe Pye weed and Bee Balm grew along the damp banks of our creek when we lived in Pennsylvania. It was a little "generic" creek like the hundreds all over those Appalachian ridges, and wasn't named, so the girls named it Sparkle Creek, and the island it split around (which was maybe 8 feet around) they named Sparkle island.

I hadn't been there very long and had hardly even been outside because I was caregiver for my MIL and she..........made it a 24 hour a day job, and a terribly stressful job, because she didn't want me there and did everything she could to get me to leave. Larry wasn't there since he still had his job in Indiana, and had to sell our Indiana home. One day my MIL told me, "I love the girls and I want them to stay here, but you need to leave! I want you to leave!" The girls were ages 8 and 3! One day I just walked out with them, when they went outside to play and went for a short walk along the creek. I was so alone and thought even God wasn't aware of me anymore. Then a breeze came up and I was overwhelmed with the smell of Earl Grey Tea. I followed my nose, until around a sharp corner a HUGE patch of brilliant red fireworks ambushed me, and I knew that the God who protects a wildflower and makes it so flourish was taking care of me. I have, ever since, called Monarda my Promise Flower.

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Joe Pye weed, along that Pennsylvania creek bed, grew up 7 feet tall. Here it barely gets 3 feet high, doesn't bloom, and dies off early. Bee Balm does the same thing. Though it sometimes blooms, the blooms are scraggly, and it dies early.

They are both up about 5 inches already and I can't wait for morning so I can dig the 3 feet deep area, line it with plastic, fill with good soil, and saturate with water.....THEN, transplant my poor babies while they are still barely awake.

Witchhazel and ferns will come from the woods, dayliles from just about anywhere on our property, the poor tiny Spice Bush that is barely alive from the herb garden and astibe and iris from various beds around the house. I can do it all at once without even shopping; without even SPENDING!

HOW COOL IS THAT????????????