non-cp bog and pond.............

yeah i know sacreligious on this site but here me out........looking to build a good sized bog and pond without CP's....the reason? 12 inches annual precip........hard to come up with enough water to do a good sized one with rain water as a primary source. so i plan on doing a smaller one for CP's and a larger one with water lillies, horse tails, arrowheads and the like..................anyways what headaches am i likely to run into with my hard tap water.....shouldnt be many so long as i flush it every so often instead of just toping it off right?

Take advantage of your hard water and build a calcareous fen. It might not be an unusual habitat in Montana, but calcareous fens are the rarest of rare habitats further east.

yah but will such plants survive my winters? BTW where would i find more info?

BTW water lilies are out of place in eastern Montana, so out of place isnt nessisarily a bad thing :grin:

Here are a couple links:

One from Manitoba - http://www.nativeorchid.org/dorisWLJ.htm

One from Minnesota http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/fwt/back_issues/september97/fens.html