Bog Garden 2015

bog garden

THE BOG GARDEN

In the bog garden, we have attempted to replicate the conditions found in northern sphagnum bogs. Bogs are very acidic, very wet, low in nutrients and devoid of mineral soil. The top several inches of a bog is dominated by living sphagnum moss which is underlaid with a bed of soggy and partially decomposed, dead sphagnum, commonly referred to as peat. Sphagnum dominates the bog environment by holding the water table up and by driving the acidity down to near vinegar.

We constructed the bog garden in 1998-99 by digging an irregular shallow pond about 10 feet wide by 45 feet long by 18 inches deep, and we lined this with a thick rubber pond liner. For the saturated peat layer we substituted 16 inches of fine sand. Then we laid down a 4 inch layer of living sphagnum, collected in a near-by bog. The garden is watered by rainfall and, from May to November, by a constant drip piped in from our pure water spring. Over the years, the sphagnum has proliferated and has formed dense hummocks and wet hollows, very much like a natural bog.

We have introduced numerous acid/wet loving plants to the sphagnum over the years but many plants have arrived and naturalized on their own, presumably from seed that came in with the original sphagnum. The sphagnum mat provides superb growing conditions for many carnivorous plants including sundews, butterworts and, most notably, pitcher plants of the genus Saracennia. Volunteer offspring from the original half dozen pitcher plants are now uncountable. Many members of the heath family also thrive here, especially wild cranberries, bog laurel, Labrador tea and leather leaf.

In wet, peat and sand, just outside the bog liner, we have a vigorous colony of the climbing fern, Lygodium palmatum, historically known from Vermont but now extirpated.