Finally, here is a long shot of the reeds, grasses, iris, lobelia, and lilies in September.
Help! Need plant suggestions for bog/wet garden ...
Dax - Just FABULOUS ! Every bit of it.
Mary
SWEEEET!!
:)
Susan
Dax - WOWEE! Your pond and stream is fabulous! Thank you for the photos! Loved looking at every one of them! And I do see some plants from your photos that I would like to try in my bog area.
Thank you so much for posting those photos! Looks like you have a bit of water gardener's heaven in your yard! I can hear the water trickling as I was looking at each photo! Did you put it in yourself or have a pro do it for you? I'm really impressed either way!!!!
Absolutely beautiful!!!!!!
Ooh Ooh! I have to jump in and say pitcher plants! The folks on the carnivorous plant forum talk about bogs all the time so they could definitely help. Plus, there are several pitcher plants native to Florida, and all are endangered. My favorite are the hooded pitcher plants. I like to go hiking in a wetland preserve and they are so cute. They have pretty yellow flowers, and they eat bugs! What more could you want? White-top pitcher plants are also very beautiful. Another good choice for a smaller tree is a loblolly bay. They're also a native that grows in the wetlands and have flowers that look like white camellias. They really caught my eye last summer when I went hiking; I went out and bought one right away! I second the motion on the cardinal lobelia - it's another great, showy native that likes it moist.
Just thought of another one - pickerel weed. I don 't know if it needs to be fully submerged; I see it growing in and on the edge of ponds. Beautiful purple flowers appear almost year round. There is a pond near a local post office that is full of them and it is just beautiful.
mellielong - Thanks for some "native" plant suggestions. I like pickerel weed. Do you know if it is consider invasive and on the prohibited Florida list? And I do like the Pitcher plants. I had been considering them. But I am also gardening for butterflies and hummers and wasn't sure if such plants would be a threat to them. How big are the two Pitcher plants that you suggested? I don't know anything about carnivorous bog plants. They are cool looking! Very unique in appearance.
Actually, pickerel weed is native! I don't know much about hummers, but there are plenty of butterflies in the wetland I go to, and they seem to just ignore the pitcher plants. I think the larvae would be more likely to eat the leaves than to actually crawl in the pitcher so they should be ok. I think with the assortment you'll have, they'll likely just go to the plants they like. And the hummingbirds will LOVE the cardinal lobelia.
mellielong - Thanks for your opinion of the Pitcher plants and butterflies. Do you happen to know just how big the Pitcher plants get? I have never seen one, so I am not sure. They do look really interesting! ;-) And I will definitely check into the availability of Pickerel weed. Sounds like some nice plants .... all of them! Thank you, thank you!
Very nice stream. I had something like that in mind but my stream turned out quite different. I had to have higher walls as I'm near wetlands and during the summer things could overflow. We have been known to have some floods in our area.
Even though my stream is different in construction, I will still have various plants growing in it. It just takes time to get all this worked out.
Fred
Hi, and thanks SO MUCH for your kind comments - I and my brothers put in the ponds and stream in the spring of 2005, and it was an amazing experience. I am blessed with brothers who are very knowledgable (worked) in the construction trades, and they had the equipment, and knew how to construct it so there was absolutely no leakage, and thus I have a 5' wide stream.
And I've got pickerel weed, I just keep forgetting the name of it - that's the one that looks like an arrow head, right? It has taken longer to get established, but here is a pic from last year on the pond edge with elephant ears and iris.
I hope you don't mind all the pics, just want to maybe give you some ideas of what you might like, etc.
I know it really helped me last year when I was trying to decide what to put where - Dax
Fred - You show post a few photos of your water garden. I love looking at other folks gardens to get ideas.
Dax - I really love your water garden. I bet you spend a lot of time outside! (I would if I had a beautiful, tranquil water garden like you have). You and your brother deserve a big pat on the back for the amazing job you did creating the ponds and stream. I can see that there was a lot of loving details put into this project. Something I am sure that you will treasure forever. Just lovely!!!
This is the Pickerel Weed that I know of:
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/1239/
What you have growing along your stream and pond looks like this plant! I do like the plant. Very attractive flowers and foliage. Good suggestion, Mellie!!!
Purple is my favorite color so pickerel weed naturally caught my eye. I never really noticed this plant until I was sitting outside the post office waiting for my brother to run in and mail a package. All the purple blooms caught my eye so of course I had to get out of the car and see what it was. I like to mix in natives as much as possible - cuts down on the workload since they can fend for themselves a lot! Gives me more time to focus on my fussy plants. And to answer your question, most pitcher plants top out around 12-18 inches, although there is a variety of hooded pitcher plant called the "Okeefenokee Giant" that gets up to three feet! Here's a picture I took of a whole bunch of them in their natural habitat.
Mellie - I like purple too. My flower scheme in my yard is red, purple, and yellow. I'm gonna have to find a place to purchase some of that Pickerel Weed. There might be a nursery local that sells it. Hmmmm.....
The minute I saw your photo, I had a flashback to a wooded area that I have been to that looked similar. I think there used to be a place where I grew up that had tons of those Pitcher Plants growing. I had no idea what they were at the time. Man, that is soooo weird! In wonder who here in Florida would sell them? Thanks for posting that photo. It really puts those plants into perspective. Is the photo of the "Okeefenokee Giant Pitcher Plants" or just the usual variety?
I am considering installing 4-6" diameter lodge pine stakes vertically along the front edge of my water garden, each about 4" to 8" high and buried about 6-8" into the ground with a rock and some gravel underneath to aid in good drainage. They are pressure treated and were previously used in a vineyard. Some do have some wide vertical cracks along lengthwise.
I will have to cut each piece and seal the cuts.
What is the best protective coating I can apply to the buried portion of each stake for longevity?
I have had pickeral weed in both of my ponds and the fish love to hide under them and nibble at the roots. I got mine from along a lake edge here in Clermont. Both of my ponds have waterfalls and there is a lot of water movement and they just float around from sun to shade and back.
I had horsetail rush and it broke a ceramic pot in the pond it grew so big. Planted some in one garden bed and it took over so it went to the garbage man.
I try invasives and if I can cut roots back and control them I keep them. Another way is to put dirt inside of a piece of weed barrier fabric under ground and plant in that. Usually keeps them from spreading. I also have black magic taro down in my pond which is not recommended around fish but none of mine have gotton sick from it yet and its been in for over a year.
I have one butterfly koi pond and one goldfish pond. Really enjoy my fish even tho I have some sad stories regarding desease. Only been a ponder for 4 years so still have a lot to learn but its sure fun.
Dax, your stream is lovely and I'm sure you enjoy it. We built our ponds ourselves. Husb does plumbing and electrical and I do the digging some with a bucket on my little Kubota tractor but unescapable is the shovel work. I'm 75 and I tell folks who thing I'm crazy thats what keeps me
young and dreaming. Right now we are bldg. a little fish shack over top of waterfalls on new pond we just completed. Going to thatch roof w/cedar shakes. I have a strong air staple gun that will do it in no time.
Enjoy your plants and water gardens all.
Bonnie
Check out Texas Water Lilies web site it is a wealth of info.
Here is their Marginals page. It will give you a lot of ideas for Marginals
http://texaswaterlilies.com/Marginalsorderpage.html
Some of what I have are corkscrew rush, Justicia America, large white calla lily, bloody dock, variegated chameleon,purple pickerel, lance leaf Sagittaria, Sweet Flag, Creeping Jenny (2 varieties),Variegated Iris, Water Celery, horse tail rush, mini cattails, Obedient Plant ( I call this Dis-obedient plant), Cardinal Flower, Fiber Optics grass, pitcher plants. Plus several cannas and Tarros. Quite a few of these are just planted in my gardens and I didn't realize that they could be used in ponds until I saw them listed as Marginals on this site or saw them growing in a local nursery's water plant section.
I don't know if anyone has suggested this yet, but I have corkscrew rush in a very wet area of my garden. I just divided it and put some in my pond, in a clay pot submerged about 4 inches. I hope that works. It's a real conversation piece.
I have corkscrew rush floating around in both ponds in floating pots and its an easy grower. Don't even take it inside during the winter and we do get some cold nights .
Bonnie
Yes corkscrew rush does very well, I have one in a pot in my pond submerged to the pot rim. There are several grasses that will do well in wet areas. I had Fiber Optic Grass last year it looked very nice.
Also if your looking for something unusuall look for Mimosa Pudica. The leaves on this plant fold up when you touch them. I grew them a few years ago and I would spend hours playing with the leaves. They thrive in moist boggy soils. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLTcVNyOhUc
We have had the Corkscrew rush in the bog all winter for several years and it doesn't really seem to affect it My fiber optics grass comes back every year as well. However DH wants to put in new Fiber Optics every year because that one seems to start slowly.
Ligularia for the part shade, very lovely types of leaves. Not sure how they would like your temps though.
C
My ligularia grows over 6' tall and is huge in the sun, even just afternoon sun. Course our sun is a lot cooler as is the ambient temp (63F)
How about lotus? I took mine out of the pond and put it in a bog and it's doing nicely. Again Texas water lillies
yes ligularia
"the rocket" very beautiful, spikeyblooms late spring L "Osmonda" yellow daisy like flowers blooming nownow chocolaty big leaves. there are several others.
Pitcher plants are pretty picky about soil and water. They wont grow in "normal" soil and will die if given water with dissolved minerals. I give mine distilled, RO or rain. No city and most wells are bad news for them. As for soil, they need an acidity medium without nutrients.
C
Quote from newtonsthirdlaw :
Pitcher plants are pretty picky about soil and water. They wont grow in "normal" soil and will die if given water with dissolved minerals. I give mine distilled, RO or rain. No city and most wells are bad news for them. As for soil, they need an acidity medium without nutrients.
C
On another water gardening forum I'm on we got to discussing a similar thread on making a bog garden. Here's what we came up with, first do you have a pressurized bio filter with a backflush mechanism? What I've heard works is to take the backflush line and run it to the floor of the bog bed. If the bog is connected to the pond this works best. The backflush sludge is pumped to the pebble bed below the bog. The decaying organic matter provides the nutrients for the plants to thrive while at the same time the pond doesn't lose water. I don't have a bio filter but I have my water feed to the header of my water course run under the pebble bed. The organic matter ends up there where it helps feed the plants. And the plants are happy and thriving.