Fall Update
Well here's the bog now getting ready for winter. It's looking a little thin because I pulled a handful of favorites to overwinter in the garage. If i don't have any losses this winter, they will stay in there next year. When i dug them out, i was thinking the roots would have grown in much more deep though. They all had nice white growing roots, but even some of the larger plants didn't seem to have grown in too deep. I suppose next year, they will be even happier and more settled in.
I have also trimmed away a lot of the withered pitchers. I did loose a few plants this year. My psittacina, purp venosa, purp montana all seemed to just fade away. I will have to replace these in the spring. All but a few of the vfts just withered and died too. Like I posted earlier, we had the wettest year ever in the area, so I will try again next year with a more open media on them. Needless to say, I didn't have to add any supplementary water either. Others i had did great and have increased in size.
The tarnok that I have had for years never ever did much in my mini bog.. But this year it put on a great show. The Dana's delight also did great, I like the hot pink color it got.
For winterization, in some form.. I am planning on adding a thick layer of straw for insulation. I was thinking about creating a PVC framework that overlays the whole bog with a mesh or screen across the top. The straw would then be held off the media by a few inches. I would think this would help for cleaning in the spring.. But also in regards to keeping rot at bay. Any thoughts?
PS- I am going to try to add some vft seeds into the bed to overwinter and see what happens. Has anyone tried letting them go to seed in a outdoors bog?
PSS- I am now not a fan of squirrels.. We are in a newer subdivision without a lot of trees and therefore squirrels… but there is one blasted one that comes from the woods 2 yards away and plants his walnuts in the bog and throughout the yard (which is mostly nice easy to dig garden soil). It's a pain to come out and see a plant partially dug up and have a huge hole in the bog. This same squirrel was walking down the fence.. where there was a red tailed hawk sitting... he proceed to go within 3 feet of it.... the hawk just sat there looking at him. Then he gets closer.. not making a sound or shaking his tail.... proceeds to hop to the lower rung of the fence.. goes under the hawk and hops back up to the top next to the hawk. The hawk fluttered his wings a bit as the squirrel proceed down the fence...