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bog garden liner questions

Okay, so I'm thinking about building a bog garden for looks. I have hundreds of sars in pots and I want to do something a little different, so I'm looking into a bog garden.

Does the liner have to be plastic? I'm thinking about just using a liner like people use in their flowerbeds to keep weeds down. It's sort of like that but a little stronger, we use it with our nursery plants, the bigger pots of trees and azaleas and shrubs, etc. We put this stuff down first and then sit the plants on it so it looks nicer and cleaner, and so the grass won't be growing up around the plants. It is made of a woven plastic. It is not water proof. The water goes right through it. I am not concerned about it holding water, I think as long as the soil is kept seperate from the regular dirt of the yard that I will be able to give them the right growing conditions.

What do you think?
 
I would not recommend using the liner. Though it does allow for water to flow through it is also not permeable. These liners also eventually break down and you would have to recreate your garden every couple years or so. I would go with a pond liner, sturdy and non permeable. The problem with the permeability is that eventually you will get leaching from one soil to another. Even with water flushing out, nutrients will eventually leach into your peat moss. Also Sarr roots are very capable of penetrating deep into the ground, and your liner IMO would not stop the roots from breaking through.
Just my 2 cents.
 
Home Depot has real pond liners. I got a 7 x 10 for $24.99 IIRC, I'm going to be lining my whiskey barrel with some of it and making a bog garden this year instead of just having the boring old Asiatic Lilies that I've had forever.
 
Okay, thanks both of you. My husband was trying to tell me that the pond liners were 10 dollars a square foot, which would make my idea outrageously expensive.

So with a plastic liner, should I poke holes in it for drainage? I'm worried about it being TOO wet. We have some real frog stranglers here at times.
 
Sarracenia are adapted to some flooding.
 
I would line the bottom of the liner with something that allows some drainage away from the peat moss. The problem isnt the flooding of the Sarrs, it's the stagnant water. Stagnant water will cause rot and can wreck havock on a collection. If you can create a bottom layer that allows water to seep out of the peat moss when it's too wet and then allows it to seep back into the peat moss via evaporation when it's too hot/dry then this could work. It really depends on your climate though.
If you receive too much rainfall though this method would be useless so I would try poking a few holes through the liner like you mentioned so that water slowly seeps out over time. The larger your bog the easier it will be to handle the watering. Since peat retains 10 times it's mass in water it will take a while to dry it out completely. There's a few growers that have in ground bogs I would ask around or search for picture threads.

Liners are not very expensive, you can get a very large one at lowes for $50 that will fit plenty of Sarrs.
 
Just like anything else pond liners are cheaper in bulk, the bigger the area the less $ per sq. ft.

For my bog barrel I'm going to stab a few holes about 1/2 way up the liner inside the barrel and line the bottom with large river stones separated from the bog soil with weed guard (kinda like a false bottom) this way when the barrel fills with rainwater it wont stay flooded but will always have plenty of "ground water" available.
 
What I've read in pond design books is that you plot and level your pond, then take a few inches off a side that runs downhill for overflow. When it comes time to fill, use big rocks and coarse gravel on the overflow spot so that water can pass through but larger chunks of media don't escape. There's also Crissytal's reservoir box trick; bury a big plastic tote box with holes poked in the sides, and a snorkel leading above the media made from PVC pipe. The tote box holds more water than an equivalent volume of media and also allows you to use a sump/siphon pump to remove water from the bog when it gets too... boggy.
~Joe
 
I am going to work on this project when school lets out for the summer. I was going to buy several small blue kiddie pools to sit my pots in to help with watering during the hot summer months, but the more I thought about it I thought I would like bogs instead. I can't decide if I will take the plants out of the pots and plant them in a naturalistic bog, or just sit them in the bog in their pots with a couple of inches of water in the bog. I have 97 different varieties of sarracenia, and some I have in bullk, so that is a LOT of sars to try to keep watered!
 
  • #10
A thought....

With cost in mind, you might take a kiddie pool and bury it slightly above soil level. (Keep the rim above soil level perhaps, to keep soil from running in from the garden or out from the bog if your ground is not level.) Fill it with peat/bog mixture (if you want), and put garden soil up to but not over the pool around the outside of it. You can then either put your pots in the pool with or without the added peat/bog mix, so it can look more "natural" if you like, or without mix for convenience.

Plant some border plants around the outside edges of the pool to hide the rim (you can also cover the rim with something dark like burlap/garden fabric to hide it) or place some rocks around part to cover the rim.
Holes can be drilled in the plastic at whatever depth you find appropriate so it will "hold" a certain amount of moisture at all times. Drilling in the bottom so it drains will defeat the purpose I would think, if you get a lot of hot dry weather, and the holes in the sides at the proper level will create an automatic max-water line.

A few kiddie pools can be placed to match the size of your collection, and the cost can be kept low by getting cheap kiddie pools. If you don't like it in a few years you can dump them, and if you really like it, you can "upgrade" to something more permanent and costly like pond liner.

Don't underestimate the potential of a cheap kiddie pool alternative, as it will allow you to "test-run" your bog setup and allow you to make it larger in the future.

Again, just a thought....
Paul
 
  • #11
Yes, that is a good thought. I wonder if they would be cheaper than some plastic. I'll look into it.
 
  • #12
Here is an idea/solution that is cheap and easy & has worked for me without fail(depending on how big you want your bog garden to be):
At a large hardware store (Home Depot, Lowes, etc) buy a large plastic "mixing tub". I found some that are 2' x 3' by 9" deep for about $10. if you want something larger find a pre-fab plastic fish pond. About 3" or 4" down from the top drill 1 or 2 decent size (1/2", 3/4") holes for water drainage. Sink the tub into the ground leaving the drainage hole(s) above ground level. you can fill in around the upper exposed part of the tub with gravel, bark, sand, rocks, whatever. So... water will drain naturally from the tub so that it doesn't become a soggy puddle/pond; water & soil cannot run into the tub garden from outside sources; the water inside doesn't just run off &/or drain away & is flushed when you add water and the bog stays nice and damp. Your garden 'form' is nice and solid. You can make lower areas for plants that like more wetness and higher areas for plants that like less soggy conditions using the growing medium or by slightly tilting the tub when you set it in the ground. tons of possibilities. Make sense?
cheers
 
  • #13
Cheap plastic kid pool are good, but you have to set up some way to regulate the water level. Use 1/2 inch bulkheads fittings with caps. The inside of the fitting have threads so you can have a small 1/2 inch PVC pipe drilled with small holes for drainage without the worry of it getting plugged.

Sometimes you have some heavy rain in Mississippi; you have to have a way of draining water without the fear of the drain holes getting plugged.

In my bog gardens, I open the drain valves to the level I want before a storm and let the rain bring the level back up to where I want it. If I don't get enough rain, I'll use RO water to get the level.


HOTROD30
 
  • #14
Yeah, the heavy rains is what I'm worried about. But when it isn't raining, the sun is so hot and zaps up every bit of moisture very quickly, and during these times it is hard to keep the plants watered. We can go from one extreme to the other - too wet or way too dry. I'm still unsure of what a bulkhead is or how it works, but I would definitely need something to allow for water drainage.
 
  • #15
Does anyone know how to install a drain to those rubber pond liner materials? Can you just buy some plumbing supplies and glue in a drain at the bottom? I'm trying to design a bog as well and am also concerned about flooding problems.
 
  • #16
I use these bulkhead fitting with the cap to regulate the water level in my two bogs.

picserve.cgi





Image taken from http://www.flexpvc.com/cart/agora.cgi?product=BulkheadFittingsStandard
 
  • #17
I actually picked up some rubber pond liner from a pond dealer. It is supposed to last for A LONG time and worked well. I was able to shape it by using scissors. So far, so good.
 
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