Saga of a new Bogger

SAGA OF A NEW BOGGER

Ever have an idea of something you'd like to try - decide to go for it - then halfway through, you feel you’re in too deep? Asking yourself "why am I doing this?" It must boil down to the simple fact that you have to, because you want a new challenge.

I'm just your average backyard dirt player, and scientifically inept about proper names and such. Just destined to be outside with my hands in the earth.

I found myself ordering more nursery catalogs to look for something different. Pitcher plants would pop up every so often. Maybe it was the scarcity of them that bit me; nah, they would just be fun. Whenever I saw one, I thought, “Oh, how cool would that be”—I'd never seen any of those around here, except at a large Omaha, NE nursery in a dried arrangement. My mind was imprinted now!

So I ordered one from Plant Delights nursery. Oh, what a beautiful plant. I potted it up in awe, even added some sphagnum peat moss to the soil. I had overturned a big pot in my little fish pond, so I proudly set it in the water, just gleaming because I now had a carnivorous pitcher plant! It survived the whole summer, never grew too much though. Then fall arrived. I put it in the shed with a tray of water.

Spring finally arrived. I anxiously awaited signs of life; "it must be a late sleeper", I'd tell myself. No, it was dead. Another plant for my “it's history” list.

The notion kept biting me. In the spring of '07, I caved into that inner turmoil. I started searching the web and found some forums, which were all new to me. I became a member of one that had several helpful posts, got responses to my trivial questions and a lot of encouragement.

I now knew the ingredients. Washed sand, sphagnum peat moss, pine needles and rain water. Okay, I was ready to dig me a hole for a real acidic peat bog! I had help at the ends of my fingertips now. I decided where I wanted it, on the north side of the house where some of Nebraska's hot dry winds would be blocked, but far enough away from the house to get sun for three-fourths of the day. I had gotten a bunch of used roofing liner for free, which would help keep the cost down. At first I thought it would be a good idea to slash drainage holes in the liner, but I was advised against that.

While digging my kidney-bean-shaped hole, I kept telling myself “go two feet down, go two feet down, if I'm going to do this, I want to do it right.” My thoughts were, if I built it big enough, it might be more self supporting as far as the acidic level and capability of holding moisture.

I found myself becoming co-dependent on my new forum buddy. “Work woman, work, build those muscles—Once you go soggy, you'll never go back,” were words of encouragement I needed and so loved. So I continued shaping my hole. I'll compare it to cutting hair, “just a little bit more.”

Finally I had my hole dug. Over two feet deep in some places, four feet across so I could reach the middle easily, and about nine feet long. The bottom had a couple inches of gravel; I came across a lot of glass while digging. Finally I was ready for the liner, yeah, one step done! Oh crap, my hole was bigger than my liner!!

I thought, “Well, I have more, I'll just put another big piece over it. The weight of the sand and peat will seal it, the ground will eventually quench its thirst for the leaking water.” Now to begin the process of washing sand. I wound up using a lot of pea-sized gravel in the bottom. That was so easy to wash and would fill it up faster. I mixed in some sphagnum peat moss, then...on to the sand.

My husband is a good egg. But gardening is not his type of “relaxation,” and doing any “unnecessary” work is not his forte. Don't get me wrong, he's not lazy, he's remodeled our home, cuts the wood, does the chores, and even picks up after himself, far better than me. So you can imagine his reaction after we brought a pickup load of washed sand home, and I told him I had to wash the washed sand! It was the day after our 31st anniversary and my 51st birthday. He bravely bit his tongue, for the most part, and let me go “play.” Oh I certainly got those, “looks” and low hanging head shakes. Poor man, he knows I'm nuts anyway.

Washing sand is not a pleasant ordeal. I tried several methods, the wheelbarrow three quarters full of running water: whoa... “I'm not getting anywhere and that's a lot of water!” I needed something that would let the dirt go through it, not rise up and over when I stirred it. I finally wound up using an old industrial dishwasher basket, lined with burlap, over a plastic fifty-gallon barrel or drum. I tried a screen, but it was too coarse. I should have bought a finer mesh and tried that, but I didn't.



In the meantime, I had put a couple of old gutters from behind the shed together, connected to the house gutter, and let a good rain fill my new hole up. In no time, all the water was gone. My insecurities were building up fast. My mind kept telling me I just needed to break down and buy a big piece of liner at this stage. I continued to add sphagnum moss and washed sand. Then we were fortunate enough to get another nice rain. I knew the sphagnum would soak up a lot of water, but this seemed to be leaking so fast. So I bought some bentonite, pushed all the mixture to one side, and put the bentonite in between the liners, hoping that would take care of the problem. It didn't. Neither did some rubber sealant. But I kept on washing sand, mixing in the sphagnum, hoping, and telling myself to stop being such an insecure worrywart. Besides, it was too late now.

I was getting closer to the top. I made sure I had the soil raised along the edge, so it would be three inches above ground level, not wanting any runoff from a heavy rain to get in and contaminate my mixture. At this time, I placed a 2" PVC pipe down almost the length of the bog. This had holes drilled in it, one end plugged and the other with an elbow and straight piece sticking up above the mixture. (Hubby did that for me). This way I could water it more evenly from below the surface and look down the straight piece and see how high the water level actually was.

Next, some pine needles. White Pine was suggested, but that's not what we had. Ours might be Austrian Pine, so that's what I used. They were to be cut up. That didn't sound like any fun either. I had bought a leaf shredder at a garage sale for $15, so I tried that. It worked! I did rinse them before I added it to the mixture. I'm getting to the top!

I mounded the mixture up in the middle and made a small “pool” about a square foot in my low spot. This was another way for me to see where the water level was. It was a wonderful year to do this, so many beautiful rains to fill the bog up with water. With my pipe and low spot, I just watched the water leak, or rather run out, more than a couple of inches some days.

Great, I'd screwed up, should have put a new liner in. Inquiring about the leaking on the forum, people thought I should be okay; a little leaking should be fine. I had learned the importance of good water for a bog during my research. I kept thinking, “when we have a dry summer, our well water wouldn't work.” The TDS readings of 325 and hardness at 18 were way too high. I had learned that TDS, total dissolved solids, was not healthy for the bog plants. The expense of an reverse osmosis system was out of the question. So I wouldn't have a way to water it; that's why I wanted it so big. “Why didn't I just put a new liner down before!!”

“All right, I'm going to do what I should have sooner. Just break down and buy a stupid new liner.” So I did. Burned a vacation day from work, dug the whole thing out, lined it and replace all the mixture back in one day. Now my husband knows I'm not just nuts, I'm flat out crazy... There was absolutely no water in the bottom. The mixture was damp and flaky. “Well, I'm glad I went ahead and did it, everything is going to be okay now.”



What a blessing, more rain. The bog filled up and ran over. The water left just as fast as it did before I spent all that money, and I knew there were no holes in the liner. We went through this process several times, rain and drain. Guess what, it simply took that long for the hydrophobic sphagnum to absorb the water! Good grief... And I was thinking of slashing drainage holes in it at the beginning!

Finally I was ready for the next step, plants! I wound up getting a "bog in a box" deal from Dangerous Plants nursery. I had called and visited with the owner and told him that I not only didn't know what I was doing, but had no idea what to order. He was so kind and sent me some plants he thought might work here. I had explained that I had too many other plants I dig up for winter, that I planned on over wintering these outside with heavy mulch.

My baby plants finally arrived. They were: sundews or Drosera (Droseraceae): Drosera filiformis, D. intermedia and D. spatulata (tropical); pitcher plants or Sarracenia (Sarraceniaceae): Sarracenia 'Dixie Lace', S. 'Judith Hindle', S. flava, S. ornata, S. rubra, S. leucophylla, S. [(leucophylla x flava) x ?)], S. 'Tarnok' and S. purpurea. Venus fly traps or Dionaea muscipula (Droseraceae): D. 'Red Dragon' and D. 'Dentata'.

Everything was planted and looking good. Then it happened—hail. Beat the little guys up pretty bad, tiny fly traps were lying all over, pitchers were broken and shredded, sun dews and ferns took the same abuse. Thank goodness they're tough, as they marched right on, and pulled through it without a single death!

My work paid off; I thoroughly enjoyed my bog this summer. The plants grew and ate quite well. I did have to water it a few times. I had set a 50 gallon drum under a gutter to catch the rainwater. I also learned that after a dry spell, it's best to let it rain for a while before you start catching water from the roof. This way the rain has washed all the dust and other impurities off the roof and out of the air.



Fall was arriving. We kept getting all of those beautiful rains. The bog was saturated, finally. The water was standing, no more “leaking.” But with winter coming, I couldn't have it that wet. Although I had mounded the mixture in the middle, it was still too wet for winter. With a knife shaking in my hand, I slashed a drainage hole in that new liner! I knew I had to do this for a better chance of plant survival.

Now to start mulching. I cut some of the pitchers off, but left most of them on. Through correspondence, I learned another new word, phyllodia. It was explained to me this way: Sarracenis form phyllodia so that they can photosynthesize over the entire winter, and temperate Drosera form hibernaculum to protect the apex from desiccation over winter.

Hibernaculum and phyllodia are winter leaves that the plants evolved over time to help them break dormancy the following spring.



I covered the bog with about eight inches of pine needles, then four inches of burr oak leaves, then another four or five inches of pine needles, knowing this would settle down quite a bit. Now I'm just riding the winter out, with great anticipation of spring and not having to add too many plants to that “dead list.” Without the plants, the saga of a new bogger wouldn't be as joyous...