Another couple days of hard work… but I cleand out the my second bog garden. Again, big shout out to Dad who again, offered tremendous moral support, bagging skills, tag making and cataloging skills!
So here is the before photos of Bogs 2 & 3. Densely overgrown… well actually a downright mess. Many of the plants were not getting adequate light burried beneath masses of flava and other tall species.
Below is bog2 finished… and you can see bog3 in the background being strip mined of all vegetation. Oh, that red flava looking thing you see in bog3 is a flava ornata x flava atropurea cross. Amazing plant gets all red, with even redder (if that’s a word) veining! Really cool!
Here is a better photo of the plant removal process. Some of the clumps of oreophila were 40 – 50 cms across! Hence the shovel!
As you can see there is lot of weeds that need to be removed. As with bog2, I removed about 15cm of media. Again, I dug to the bottom, and the media smelled fresh all the way down… so I’m thinking I can easily wait 5 years or maybe even 6 before I do this again!
I imagine the reason the media is so fresh is that I don’t keep these bogs sopping wet. You can see the drainage spouts that are about 10cms down, this drains any excess water from heavy rains… however, I don’t water these bogs very often if at all. The soil remains moist but not waterlogged! I really think one of the biggest issues with new growers is they like to keep the plants too wet! The roots need air people! Too wet and they drown! Anyway, I get side tracked.
The plants removed!
So once the top media was removed… three bags of silica sand and 2 bales of peat moss were added and mixed into the old media, raked out and is now ready for replanting.
Now at this point, I learned a bit of lesson. It would have been better to wet the peat/sand at this point… granted it was somewhat damp as I mixed it into the wet stuff… but because it was mostly dry, I had to water it, and water it, over and over to get the media moist after I planted it
So here is the finished product.
and the same photo as the opening photo in this post, but of the bogs cleaned up
I know… it looks like crap… leaves mangled and laying all over! However, I think it important to leave the leaves (leave the leaves! – english is weird) on as they provide photosynthesis and food for the plant as it establishes. Once new leaves are produced, I will go through and clean these up!
The last step is to mulch! One to help keep in moisture in the heat of summer, but two, to help keep weeds at bay. So I’m going to pickup some UNTREATED cedar mulch… no colors, not composted, nothing… just plain old cedar mulch. I will spread this over the surface of the bogs.
Oh and just for fun, I took a photo of my flytrap bog in flower!
CJM
Zone 6b 
Keep up the great work !! I’m soooooo jealous 🙂
maybe a stupid question.. What kind of cedar mulch… like the center hard wood or the finer stuff
on the outside. I may not be thinking of the same stuff as u are using….
Not sure actually… the stuff I’ve seen is shredded has wood and bark mixed… I don’t think either would matter… as long has its the shredded stuff and not the chunky stuff.
Looking good! Where do you pick up untreated cedar mulch?
Looks good! Where do you get your untreated cedar mulch?
Steve just mentioned pine bark mulch… that’s cool too if you can find that easier. I think you can get untreated cedar mulch at Home Depot or Lowes or your local garden center… its pretty common.
Wow!! Did not realize the work that it takes taking it apart & then preparing it & planting all over again. Nice pics, especially the last one, did not realize Venus Fly Traps had such a beautiful flower. Good job!
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Hi Carl
Nice to see it all done. Out of interest do you get many plants sulking after the transplanting, particularly the rubicorporas, atrropurpureas and leuco’s?
I treat my bigs in a similar fashion every so often, but add pine bark mulch and sulphur most years to maintain the acidity, reduce the peat decomposition and add some bulk to the top layers, which keeps the bogs going for five years or more befor a new top dressing needs applying.
You are quite correct about the excessive water that a lot of people add to bogs, which can go anaerobic and kill the plants a common problem I think.
How deep are your bogs-apologies for all the questions just curious to compare notes as it were.
Cheers
Steve
mmm. pine bark mulch… I should look into that… that sounds more like what they’d have in their natural habitat in the south! How much sulphur do you add? As far as bog depth goes, mine are around cms or so.
As far as sulking goes, ya… they sulk abit for day or two but they rebound pretty quick.
BTW… questions are good 🙂
Oh… 30-40 cms! Sorry
Hi Carl
I take a ph reading of the bogs in March/April and add about an ounce per square yard for each full 1 ph drop I want. It takes a while to kick in as it needs warmer weather to get going but the intervening period allows it to wash into the bog and I aim for 4.5 – 5.5 that way the peat doesn’t decompose as fast and the ph is a bit low but around what the plants like. Then the pine bark slowly adds tannins and acidity to help maintain the level. It’s one of those things that I don’t know how necessary it is but it works for me
You missed out the magic number before the cms deep for the bog 🙂
I should clear out mine more often but don’t like to disturb them too much as some tseem to sulk for up to a year before getting back to good growth, even if I don’t bear root them and do it in early spring, so yours do recover a lot better than mine, I will try one next year in early July to see how it goes.
Cheers
Steve
Interesting…I’ve never checked the pH of my bogs… How do you do that…stick litmus paper in the media and let it get soaked? I guess if its not down in the 4’s I could do the same as you with the sulphur!
Hi Carl
Apologies for the late reply, I’ve been working away. I used to us universal testing paper but the results were a bit hit and miss, I tried the usual push in the soil type made for gardeners but found they were of very dubious accuracy. Then I bought this, it’s expensive but lasts forever, accurate and doesn’t need batteries. Definitely one of better purchases.
Cheers
Steve
Cool thanks… it does not ship to Canada but there must be something like that over here!
Seeing the densely planted flytrap garden always makes me wish I could dump a container of small insects on them.
When you excavate these gardens, do you ever take measures to ensure the most anaerobic soil at the bottom is removed first? Like churning the peat/sand with a shovel to get the bottom layer on top and then removing that top section, for example.
Bump to follow post.
When I replaced the soil in my bogs this summer, I removed the top 10cm or so, then mixed up new media with the soil at the bottom the best I could…