Equilibrium, What do you think of the water garden so far???

Well, it's a tough decision because the rock looks so much more attractive.

I agree! One of my favorite ponds had a creekbed with peagravel and granite in it, was full of plants and served as the veggie filter. It looked pretty, did a really good job and was easy to clean. The fish were never near the rocks, I got to enjoy looking at them and they were easy enough to clean. As much as I love the look of the ponds with stone bottoms, I think I'll stick to rock edges and maybe consider adding the creek bed to this one. It's a shame to have such flat land because I'd love to do a mutilevel without so much work. LOL Hello cinderblocks....

If it's a creek bed with rock in it what's the problem with easy access to that to clean it if you need to? Creekbeds aren't that deep at all and they aren't that wide so you'd be able to scoop out your substrate on an as need basis to clean it quite easily if you wanted. The water is still going to flow regardless of whether some rock was temporarily removed or not to be cleaned. I've never seen a creek bed I liked without rock. I'm sure they're out there but I just have never seen any. I have seen one of those that was mortared. I asked them how they cleaned that and they told me they shut the pumps off and used a high pressure nozzle to their garden hose and basically power washed their rock by directing the blast of water so that it went out of the stream bed as opposed to down into the pond. Just a thought.

Do y'all like Venus Fly traps?? they are rated zone 7 just like Gunnera! I've had VFTs in my bog garden since 1999. The best recommendation for Gunnera I can give is plant it close to the foundation and after the first frost cut off the leaves and cover the crown with them. It's no guarantee but hey they are becomming very popular as annuals at least in this area and run only $8-10 so why not experiment...that's what I did with the VFT and you can see they are doing fine!

Oh oh oh! Awesome suggestion! I'm one zone colder than BogMan and I've got VFTs here doing perfectly fine. They can make it in 5a with some decent mulch.

Looking beautiful, Bogman!! Can't wait to see the finished product.
Re creeks and cleaning, mine is really easy to clean. I use H2O2 to keep string algae from going wild and when I use it I pour it into the pond via the the waterfall. This takes it down the stream as well. I let the water circulate for a couple of days and then go down the stream and agitate all the rocks. I have little pebbles lining the creek so it's easy to just take my hand and stir them around a bit. All the junk just goes downstream where it is dumped over small falls and into the pond. I can let it all fall into a net, and the detritus that continues through the net is pulled quickly into the skimmer filter. This keep my rocks looking fresh and pretty.

Hey Lauren, I found a place for a bog garden! I've already started digging, but it's really really cold this week so I'm not in the mood to bring in dirt. When it really gets going, I'll post photos. It will be an extension of the landscaping to the right of the stream.

Bogman, I love those little carnivorous plants but never knew they could be kept outside. Equilibrium just started telling me about them a couple of months ago. I have a bunch of kids that would be thrilled if I grew those. LOL My ten year old keeps trying to get me to bring home all the little plastic boxes of them from the DIY stores. Are there varieties that do better than others? Is there only one type of VFT (maybe a stupid question but I've never seen a discernable difference in them)? I do know there are several types of Sarracenia. I have some perfect areas here for bogs but need to do some more reading and research. One of my biggest to do's is educate myself on acid bogs and plants for them, then the plants that don't need the acidic soil. Either way I will have to buy soil and would like to have different types with different plants obviously.

Lauren, I only ever have 2 problems with getting to the pond to clean it: time and too many plants! LOL

Badseed

I have a word document on how to start a bog garden with the best plants as well as sources if you're interested send me an email!

Only one species of VFT. there are several cultivars of the species though.

Sarracenia has a dozen or more species. S. purpurea is native here in Ohio. Others like S. flava, psittacina, and a number of hybrids are good here too. Avoid rubra, leucophylla and those that produce their best pitchers in fall.

Sundews will also do well here. Drosera intermedia, rotundifolia and my personal Favorite D. filiformis. all will do quite well in an acid bog. And an acid bog is not at all difficult to get started!!

Bogman: What is your opinion of Rumex sanguineus? I have three plants in my bog, Iris pseudacorus, Iris versicolor and the Rumex. The Rumex is still a nice colorful clump and looks like it might spread a bit more than I want. The winter doesnt seemed to have bothered it much. The bog is 6x6x3, 20mil epdm lined with a couple of puncture holes for drainage, 6 inches of pea gravel, a perforated irrigation pipe that runs L shaped on top of the gravel. The 90 elbow ends at the surface with a quick connect hose fitting so I can water from the bottom up during dry spells. The soil is 75% peat mixed with acid sandy loam. The yellow iris gets 5'tall. Last summer I bottom watered only about 5 times as the plants seemed to be going pretty good. When I water I use a Systems IV filter (http://www.pondbiz.com/home/pb1/page_16_9/garden_hose_chlorine_filter.html)which removes the chlorine. (I use this to top off the pond during dry spells too.) The bog is two years old. Would this same setup work for pitcher plants?

I'm green with envy. I've been trying now for two years to get somebody out here with a piece of heavy equipment to dig a few areas for bogs for me. The issue with me doing it myself is that the area had a couple hundred buckthorn in it that were cleared. Their root systems remain under the ground and no way can bogs be added to that area without heavy equipment. I certainly couldn't dig bogs myself there and I'm not afraid of heavy labor. The next problem is the size of the job. Evidently it's too small. I've had quite a few tell me outright that what I want done is too small of a job for them. I've gotten a few people to come out here and quote me but they pretty much claim that they can only do me if there is another job in the area where their equipment would be close. This will be the second year that I will be trying to get somebody out here to dig. Until then, virtually everything is in hundreds of pots or small bogs that I was able to create myself. Depressing considering I've got the approval to go ahead with excavation to create big momma bogs.

Hi,Lauren!Are you talking about field tilers &dozing,or,bobcat skid-steer loaders,for your excavating plans?.....Dave.....

I don't know all of what was actually needed but a Bobcat won't work. They all mentioned needing a dump truck (preferably a semi) to haul off what they removed as well as a backhoe that was small enough to get through a small orchard to get to the area in which I want bogs created. The problem appears to be where I am located which is more rural with few if any development projects in the area and the actual cost of my job which is only going to be a couple thousand dollars and most of the jobs are in the hundreds of thousands and are considerably farther away. I am geographically undesirable from a profit margin stand point in that getting the equipment to the site would not be cost effective for most contractors unless.... they are already somewhere in the area.

One other issue is coordinating this at the right time of year so that their equipment doesn't sink or collapse drain tiles and such. I paid to have feeds trenched into that area two years ago in anticipation of the bogs I want and if they collapse them, no rain water to the bogs or another couple thousand dollar repair bill. To top it off, the area is located within 50' of a wetlands which scared off a lot of small contractors who flat out won't work in range of any wetlands for fear of getting tangled up in a web of misery but I've had the site approved and am beyond that hurdle.

It's been frustratingly fun. Gotta small backhoe Davers? If you do, please come and visit me from Kansas... don't forget to bring the backhoe ya hear!

yep.....I say we have a "bog party"....GATHER THE SHOVELS!!!

Equilibrium - How big is thing gonna be? I've got some vacation time coming! Share you secrets to successful bog gardening, please? Depth, soil, etc. Watering plans, if any needed.

I know what you mean about the "job is too small" stuff. I have been trying to get a historical caboose sandblasted and painted for two years. Contractors want to do bridges and overpasses and water towers, not tiny little cabooses. Plus the thing has lead paint in one small( 5%) area and the contractors run for the hills. So the thing just sits there, rusting and leaching lead into the soil every time it rains. The village is trying to do the responsible thing, willing to pay for it, and we cant get a contractor to even give a quote on a plan which would be EPA approved.

Hi,snapple45!Is the caboose sitting on tracks?If it is and the trucks(wheels),are stable,you might be able to locate a rail-car repair company in your area and switch it in? just a thought....Dave.....

( I am geographically undesirable from a profit margin stand point in that getting the equipment to the site would not be cost effective for most contractors unless.... they are already somewhere in the area. )

Many farmers have backhoes and it should be no problem finding one even in remote areas...they are farely inexpensice to hire out or in as the case... I hand dug my three large water gardens but had a backhoe for some underground electric lines I was laying and had the guy finish off one of mine that I had about 2/3 dug. I had him pile it for a waterfall ...Most of my removed top most dirt I put on my garden to raise it a bit and the rest I made berms ...not really any big deal unless you are out of space!!...David

Sorry about your caboose snapple. I know how these things go all too well.

Bog Party? I'd be game. One major obstacle, I went out there and tried to get some of those stumps out myself to see what the big problem was and we're talking you'll wrench out your innards trying to heave ho and get a pick under one of those to wrench it out. You will not succeed anytime in the near future until those root systems start rotting out ina bout 10 years or so. They need a nice bucket with teeth on it to pull them out. I appreciate it, but somebody would get hurt or at the very least end up with a double hernia. Ihave literally gotten picks underneath them and tried to jump on the pick to get some of them to budge and ended up in all sorts of interesting and unflattering positions on the ground. Needless to say, jumping on a pick is not a bright idea.

The actual volume of the areas isn't that great because the depth I wanted was only 20"-24". I have no need for anything deeper than that. I'm going to be using .060 Firestone roofing material as opposed to EPDM specifically manufactured for ponds and such. My shapes were limited to the liner widths and lengths but I had planned on having at least 2 bog areas if not 3. The other factor I had to take into consideration when choosing my shapes was being able to get in and weed so I have designs that help me do that without having to unnecessarily disturb the plants that will be growing there.

The bogs I currently have are anywhere from 15-30 gallons on up to around 200 gallons. I've otugrown them and definitely need to expand. The ones I want will cover a lot of surface area but are each over a thousand gallons a piece with one having considerably more volume.
I'm afraid if I don't get these bogs soon, I am at capacity for growing carnivorous plants as well as other wetlands species.

As far as farmers around here, good souls and they'd be over to help in a snap... if they could. Very neighborly people but the farms around here are all horse farms. The big equipment is a heavy duty tractor and a bailer if we're lucky but some have moved on up to round bails so they do have these forklift looking pieces of equipment that pick up the round bails. Other than that, our farmer friends have come over here and pulled the vehicles of friends and relatives back up onto our driveway using their tractors and for that I am eternally grateful- no charge either. Backing out of our driveway can be brutal. It sort of curves a little bit and the elevation drops off on the side that everybody seems to end up backing off of. The elevation is just enough to have flipped a few cars over on their sides. Fun, eh?

Oh snapple, BogMan started a thread a while ago on how to create a bog garden from scratch. Go to his user name and look up threads started by him and you should be able to find it and the mysteries of bogging will unfold before your very eyes!

Equi-I've been lurking here a long time, but I just had a thought. What kind of horses at those horse farms? I have seen the big draft horses used to pull stumps. It is amazing!

He he he, mostly hunter jumpers. There are lots of Thoroughbreds but a few people have taste (just teasing) and have Arabs as well as other breeds. Not too many Draft breeds or Warmbloods around these parts but they are out there... somewhere.

I was thinking jackhammer classes might be an option to pursue but then again I don't think I'd be able to handle a jackhammer, not even a small 70lb one but then again I've surprised myself before. I suppose there would be the little stumbling block of selling my husband on the idea of buying me one too. Visions of my body parts vibrating off to parts unknown are going through my head at the thought but ya never know. I just had to go searching for pricing on Hydro Saws so am sort of afraid to go out and find out what the cost of a jackhammer is. Desperation has pushed many a person over the edge to come up with creative solutions to what appear to be insurmountable issues.

Darn, just a thought. :>}

ermmmmm....com-a-longs(3ton-chain-pulley-type),log-chained to another stump or tree trunk with 6ft pry bars as you pull,after you chain saw accessible roots?...I'm tard.........

Davers, the confounded thing is on two pieces of isolated rail inside a municipal park.
It's goin nowhere. It came here on two lowboys.

equilibrium, dynamite? Just let the neighbors know in advance and you should be fine, right?

snapple45...Over the years,here, in my area,there have been railroad restoration buffs that would do a project just for materials costs and having a community event along with the project.The projects here have been involved with the Atchison,Topeka and the Santa fe railroad cars,engines and depots......possibility?good luck!

Dy - No - Mite!! Yeah, that'll do it. Hey ya'll, watch this!

I agree with Snapple, dynamite! solves all your problems! gets rid of the roots, and if ya do it right it'll blast your holes in the ground too!

Dynamite! Wow, there's something that would really impress my husband. I'm sure he'd love to raise children on his own ;) I think that blowing off body parts to places unknown would sure top vibrating body parts off to places unknown. He could walk around and gather me up after I tried to deal with those stumps by using dynamite. Dynamite probably isn't a good idea for me because I am not all that coordinated and I can guarantee I'd end up dead or permanently disfigured. All joking aside, I know there are people out there who have been successful setting charges but I'm way too afraid to even consider dynamite.

I found something else that might really impress my husband. I went back to the place he bought my chain saw from-
[HYPERLINK@www.burrisequipment.com]
I called and asked them about jackhammers just for yucks. Our sales rep recommended an air powered model and he said they had two models that weighed less than me and that they would give me personalized hands on instruction on how to operate one but he'd never heard of anyone using one for tree stumps. He believed a 35" self propelled stump grinder with a carbide grinding wheel might better meet my needs and indicated those will go well below the surface and could be rented. I guess they are hydrostatically maneuvered over tree stumps somehow. One problem, they only grind to 12" below the surface. Which puts me back to square one, get somebody with a small backhoe.

Ha ha ha, missed this-

Were you volunteering?

OK E!

why not rent the backhoe?? Our local ABC rental has them for $200 a day hands on training included, delivery and pick up available. I thought about one when I was putting in the water gardens, but glutton for punishment that I am, I decided just to dig. It might be a possibility?

Our rental is $350 per day which includes delivery to the site as well as a second training. I got the first training for free already without a rental. After I saw photos of Badseed last fall I actually went in and tried. Figure a minimum 2 day rental if I can locate someone around here who knows how to operate one or who is even willing to try and figure 3-4 days if I am the one who has to try to operate it and here's hoping I don't tip it over trying to get down to the lower grade to work. I'm told there is a reason why "skilled" is in front of the word operator and that I wasn't to feel bad about not quite "getting" the hang of it as there were some men out there who couldn't quite get the hang of it. They did offer to try to train me again next spring. I'm no Badseed. I have trouble driving my car some times and I still can't back up our Cub Cadet if it has a little trailor attached to it. You're giving me far more credit than is deserved, trust me on this one.

Oh come on doll! Don't be so girlie! Half the fun is the fear of the unknown. LOL Training? A rough looking truck driver brought it over and dropped it off. He asked if I knew how to use it and I told him not a clue! LOL I had used a walk behind twice before but never a larger one. He tells me to hop on, shows me all the buttons, assures me he is not getting fresh then leaves. It was all me after that and I have to tell you, it's fun!! Honestly, if it scare or worries you, it might be safer to not do it yourself. Wanna rent me for a weekend? LOL

You are right on the price though. I think my four hour rental on the escavator was $384 with tax, delivery, deposit, etc. I think I got like $100 of that back. There is a trick to backing up CC with a trailor-steer the opposite way of which you want to go. Even then it doesn't always work. LOL You should have seen me pulling my first Uhaul trailor. It was ugly!

Oh Bogman, I will E you about the bog directions. Is it different than the one you posted on another thread? I took notes on that one!

Hey all, Help me out please, I posted an ID question over in the trees and shrubs forum if you can help I'd most appreciate it... It's rather rare for me to be stumped by a shrub. I think it must be Asian? or European, cause I sure shootin don't recognize it!

No, no - I was volunteering to run and find my hard hat!

I didn't think you had experience with a backhoe, I thought you rented a bobcat excavator. The backhoe has levers (lots of levers) and it was very frustrating and the guy was trying to direct me but I somehow swung around and almost knocked his block off. I have no idea how it went that way when I wanted it to go the other way. Needless to say, the lesson was over. I could see a few other employees in the window watching and nobody was laughing. I got down and left it right where it was after that. I had done fine moving it forward and backwards but getting the bucket to do what I wanted it to do was another issue. The whole area where you sit swivels if that makes any sense and then the buckets tilts and the arm goes up and down as well as to the left and right and there were just too many functions for my liking.

Maybe I'm a little shell shocked after my first lesson when I almost did bodily harm to my instructor but I am not comfortable operating one of these things and I doubt I'd even try an excavator at this point in time. I don't want to kill myself or anyone else and I don't want to tip it over and get stuck with the bill for getting it upright again. There is a dip of several feet down to the area where I want my bogs. It's just enough to create a potential problem if you don't hit it just right getting down to the lower grade. It's only about a 4' decline or so but it's there.

Sorry sweetie, I'm going to have to take a pass on operating one of these. Once you have a bad experience, you don't forget.

So far with our lawn tractor, I've always been able to get out and detach the trailer then turn around and reattach it to go the direction I want to go. Sometimes I just make a wide swing of an area to avoid having to back up at all. I've been able to find workarounds for that.

That being said, I'll rent you woman! When can you come? You can supervise the person I find to run the thing and we can go plant shopping while that person is digging. I think it's a game plan... now about all of your kids and all of mine...