article: Creating a Bog Area

Creating a Bog Area

Natural bog gardens have a progressive feature from the deep portions of the water garden, to the over flow of water to the surrounding soils. The water that overflows, filling puddles and making smaller areas of moisture that never dry are bog gardens. The deep moist soil is where you can walk and sink as the moisture is constant, making this area its own, not to be tamed by the drought or too much water.

Creating a natural looking bog garden may not be easy if you don’t have a water garden to start with. A water garden is going to give you a source of water for the bog garden all the time. Some type of natural stream would ‘do this’ for you as well, making the area you want to create a bog garden at. Actually watering the soil where you want to create a water garden is too cumbersome and bothersome to create the type of bog garden that you really want.

A small pipe that could bring excess water from the water garden or a stream that diverts water to your bog area would be a great start to keeping moisture flowing to this area. To start creating your bog garden, you should dig out the area, digging up the soil in the area that you want to be a bog garden. Dig it about twelve inches down. Remove the rocks, the soil and then replace this with a layer or plastic, or a liner that will hold the moisture. It does not have to be as fancy as the pond liner, the sides of the liner will not show above the soil.

Create a heavy mix of manure, sand and put this on the bottom of your hole. This should be about eight inches thick. The top layer of ‘soil’ that you create for the bog garden is important, because you don’t want it to dry out too fast in the sun or in the hot air. A mixture half and half manure and soil. If you have heavy clay soil, be sure to add loam and lime to break down that clay that can dry out fast. Cover the entire area that you want to create a bog garden.

The bed of your bog garden will include the pipe that will bring water to your bog garden from the spring, creek, or from your water garden. Creating a bog garden is more than just the right mixture of water and soil, but you should also include the use of worms, as many worms as you can find! When first filling the bog garden with water, let your garden hose wet the soil for at least half an hour to an hour, depending on how big the bog area will be. Put a good number of worms in your bog garden and then you can start planting in the bog area!