Saturday, June 20, 2015

There’s always room for one more…

One more bog garden that is! I bit the bullet this afternoon and brought myself another 1.1 m (4 foot) diameter pond. Probably a bit on the big size for how many plants I need to find a home for, but I figured it would be an idea to leave some room for new plants. Now I just need a trailer load of gravel to level up the ground and a set of drainage fittings from the local hydro shop and I’m off and running.

For this last bog, I am planning on not introducing Sphagnum to it, and will instead allow rosette and pygmy Drosera and Utricularia to have free run. This is relative to the other gardens, which are quickly producing luxuriant, billowy cushions of moss that quickly swallow up growing space for plants like Drosera pygmaea. Interestingly though, D. burmanni and the other rosette sundews I have grow well on live Sphagnum, almost like they are crowd surfing! The Sarracenia that will be calling it home are all variants of  S. flava or S. leucophylla, plus one miniature flava look-a-like cross.

As the gear I need is not available till late this week coming, expect some new posts next Saturday on progress of the new garden. In the meantime, I will busy myself preparing the watering system for a windbreak I am planting around the bog garden site.

Happy growing till then.

Friday, June 19, 2015

Still here–and its freezing cold!

I can’t believe that six months can pass by so fast, but that’s how long its (nearly) been since the last time I posted anything! An update is well overdue, so here goes…

bog end season

The Sarracenia did a lot better than I had expected this season, especially given they started off with pitchers deformed or rhizomes toppled by the wind. An unexpected help was the tomatoes that self-sowed themselves along the back of our paved area. Just after Christmas, we made up a temporary trellis that doubled as a much welcomed windbreak. I really enjoyed this as well because I could pick golf ball sized tomatoes to munch on as I enjoyed my plants. Store brought tomatoes never taste good after you grow your own. A disadvantage is that the bushes tended to invade the gardens. I am sure I will have to weed out tomato seedlings from between the Sarracenia come spring…