Bog garden continued before and after

I thought I would do a before and after shot of the bog garden.  I've been waiting patiently for the ironweed to bloom because it's so pretty. It blooms down at the river in it's native form which gets 6-7 feet tall.  My variety is a cultivar dwarf size. 

It's been hot and dry this summer and I've lost a lot of plants but the bog was a huge success.  Except for not having the pickeral weed which was the original plan.  I gave up on it after the deer ate it down every time it would get over 2" tall.  I have native passion flower twining around the ground and up the hook that holds the wind chime.  My varigated yucca made an appearance after I had forgotten that I put it there.  The blue tinged panic grasses are doing well.  The pitcher plants are great.  I'm so glad I tried them.  The whole thing was almost maintenence except for adding water when it was dry (which was most of the summer).

So that is the bog blog wrapping up for the season.  I'll be posting about other garden stuff till frost but I'm so glad you joined me on this adventure.  Next time you have an area of the yard that won't drain or where the gutters always make a wet spot, try a bog.

Remember this?  

Now look at this!

That's passion flower growing around the ground and some varigated yucca spikes

Ironweed with feathery clumps of lavender flowers complete with butterfly

More bog blogging!

wind chime for the deer

I couldn't resist the morning sunshine today so went out to get some new pix of the blog.  I came home from the nursery Friday with 2 big pots of pitcher plants to add to the ones already in and some sedges.  The deer have found the pickeral weed and may not let it grow.  I hung a wind chime along with the little flag in hopes of detering them. Yeah, right!!

The other things planted are coming up nicely; ironweed, amsonia, turtle head, irises.  They will be blooming by May, I hope. More pictures in a couple of weeks!

morning sunshine

The bog blog

So I'm about to go crazy with this winter weather.  It's been cold, wet, snowy, icy, cold, cold, cold.  There is a silver lining, though.  All this wet is great for the soil and the plants.  We've had some pretty severe droughts here in NE Ga so we hate to complain about the wetness.  Since the ground is so soft, I thought I would start a bog garden.  I already have a couple of little ponds in the garden but needed a place to move some plants to that don't have to be in water.  Soooo, I thought bog! 

My appaloosa, George!

I'm using an old feed tub like this one. It's hard to tell in this picture but it's about 27" dia. and 10 " deep.  I dug the hole a couple of weeks ago when we had a day that above 50 degrees. I got it into place and I've started putting some rocks around it. We grow a lot of rocks around here.  Later this winter, I'll start moving some plants to be around the outside and then filling in the tub with dirt and water to make the bog.  I'm really excited about how it will turn out.  Of course, I don't really know how it will turn out.  That's what's fun about the garden.  It really does what it wants to do.

Untouched ground 

Feed tub in place

 I collected more rocks today and will start putting them around it tomorrow and I'll be posting the bog progress all spring and summer.