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Funky Junk Bog
From the gigantic, crinkly leaves of Gunnera manicata to the tiny sticky fly traps of the sundew bog plants are amazing and make a really fascinating addition to the garden. They all like to grow in really wet soil that doesn’t dry out, if you don’t have these conditions in your garden or don’t have much space then a creating your own junk bog is the perfect solution. You could even have a miniature windowsill bog garden. Anything that is watertight and will hold compost is a suitable home for a bog plant, buckets, wellies, waste bins, tin cans, food packaging, bowls or even a punctured foot ball will fit the bill.
Planting a Junk Bog
- First collect plenty of junk containers and chose your plants. As well as bog plants, plants described as marginal plants, that means they normally grow in shallow water at the edge of ponds, will grow happily in a container bog.
- Mix some John Innes No 3 compost with some leaf mould if you have it or some multipurpose compost and put it into your container.
- Put in your plant and add more compost firming it around the root ball add compost until it is at the same level as that of the top of the root ball.
- Now put a layer of pebbles, moss or even glass marbles on top of the compost. This layer is called mulch and helps to stop water evaporating from your bog. It can also help to show off the plants and stop compost splashing up on to their leaves.
- Finally give your plants plenty of water and keep the compost really damp and your plants should thrive in their junk containers.
You can gradually increase the number of containers in your collection, arranging them to show off your collection of amazing bog plants. Here we have Acorus gramineus ‘variagatus’ planted in a football and a welly, Houttuynia planted in a bowl, Gunnera manicata planted in a bucket, Pharlaris and Lobelia ‘Hadspen’ in another bucket and a carnivorous bog in a plastic bowl. There are plenty of plants to chose from so pick the ones you really like.
Insect Eating Bog
Gruesome, fascinating and quite beautiful all at the same time, carnivorous plants are some of the most interesting and unusual bog plants. They get their nutrition from digesting the insects they capture in their cunning traps rather than the compost. The sundew (Drosera) has sticky globules on fine red hairs which hold an insect fast, Sarracenias attract insects with a nectar around the rim of their funnels, once they land on the plant insects soon loose their grip and fall into the funnels or pitchers to be digested. While the Venus fly trap (Dionea muscipula) snaps shut on any insect unlucky enough to land on it.
Carnivorous bog plants are slightly different they need the same watertight container but they need acid conditions to grow well. So plant them in a mixture of peat and horticultural sand and only water them with rainwater. Tap water is too alkaline.
Clare Matthews, Clare Matthews Garden Design Ltd.
