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Help with making a cp garden in back yard

i live in houston tx my parents already have quite a few plants outside any way my question is what do i need to create an garden of cp's
 
get a big rubbermaid container, add a layer of sand or bog-safe gravel, add 50/50 sand/peat, and add plants. put in full sun. you can bury it if you want. if you want a big one use a kiddie pool.
 
what i would do it maybe dig a hole about 6 inches deep in a shady part of the yard and make it almost like pool and fill it with peat moss ect., but just be smart about it. Maybe put a gaint trashbag in the hole to help hold water. The rubbermaid idea sounds pretty good too. that way it can hold water. decorate it by linning bricks or putting other cool looking plants around it to make it look more like a wild bog.
 
The purpose of the rubbermaid container is not just to help hold in moisture/water. The problem with planting CP's outside, is that 1) chances are your backyard is not a CP environment. Meaning that the dirt in your backyard contains minerals and stuff that will kill CP's.

This is why you use a plastic kiddy pool, pond liner, or a rubbermaid container. This will help keep that stuff out. If you do bury it I'd suggest having it stick out a few inches above the ground. This way water with contaniments can't get into your bog garden's soil.
 
dirt= minerals and minerals = contanimates? or are you talking about mold?
 
Not all dirt has harmful minerals; dirt composed entirely of organic matter (like peat) and inert solids (like perlite) is OK for CPs because it doesn't contain any minerals that can dissolve into water. True, perlite is a volcanic rock, which is a mineral, and peat is derived from organic processes that originated with minerals, but the point is that these aren't soluble mineral nutrients that a plant will try to take up and metabolise. When CPers refer to minerals in this context they're basically talking about stuff that acts as fertilizer like lime, potassium, phosphorous, etc., from what I gather. These free nutrients are harmful to the roots of most CPs and so are to be avoided.
~Joe
 
Can't tell about the sand. Silicon or quartz sand is safe. Look for sand used for reptile bedding or sandblasting. If it's sphagnum peat and it doesn't have fertilizer mixed into it, it should be good.
~Joe
 
if i did grow outside would they go dormant on their own??
 
  • #10
Unless you live in the tropics, yes.
~Joe
 
  • #11
you think Vermiculite would be good for CPs? i use it in gardening and seems to hold moisture pretty good.
 
  • #12
I don't remember why, but I always see perlite favored over vermiculite in CP literature. I think it's because vermiculite is hazardous to humans and animals. It should work, but perlite is just as good and easy to find.
~Joe
 
  • #13
yes Vermiculite dose seem hard to find at times.
 
  • #14
Vermiculite tends to break-down over time into a fine particle sludge which compacts at the bottom of the pot--this can choke the roots of a plant. For this reason, I use it on only a few of my soil mixes (and not at all for CPs) and generally favor perlite. Perlite has it's disadvantages as well, such as a tendency to rise to the top of soil mixes. However, a disadvantage can be found with any component of a soil mix (as well as with any product per se) and so you have to simply weigh the pros versus the cons for your given situation. So to boil it down, I'd choose perlite over vermiculite on almost all occasions.
 
  • #15
I like ceramic chips in favor of either perlite or vermiculite, but I'm still testing the waters to see if ceramic is really a valid replacement. So far, it works great with my succulents and a few Pings and Drosera I've tried it on. I'm even growing a rubber tree cutting in straight ceramic chips, nothing else. Still not sure about bog plants - I think ceramic might not have the best water holding capacity - but I'm hopeful because the ceramic stuff is just about unbreakable compared to perlite and vermiculite.
~Joe
 
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