Bogged Down in the Garden

This winter, we were mulling over options for our a bed along the walkway to our nursery and garden office. We had previously had a narrow raised bed, but this was backing up rain water on our sidewalk. The garden and research staff proposed that we remove the raised bed and install a bog garden/rain garden to catch and use the runoff from the office roof.

The first step was removing the existing plantings, followed by an excavation to 2′ in depth, being sure the bottom was level.

An overflow pipe was installed at the east end at a level where water would never pond in the top few inches.

The next step was the addition of a pond liner, followed by several inches of washed stone gravel. Just covered by the gravel was a horizontal pvc pipe, connected to a vertical tube, which would provide a way to add water from the bottom up, should such ever be needed.

On top of the gravel, we added about 15″ of a soil mix, comprised of 50% native sandy loam from the property and 50% peat moss. Once the mix was thoroughly moistened, plantings began. We’ll continue to add small bog plants as the season goes, but we’ve already been through several significant rains, and the system functions beautifully. Water management is such an important factor in gardens, so we hope this gives folks an idea of how to turn a garden concern into a special plant habitat.

1 thought on “Bogged Down in the Garden”

  1. I saw the completed bog garden when I was at the winter open house. I liked the way you added a stone foot path across the garden so people would not trample the plants when taking a ‘short cut’. I am curious was to why you added the ‘water from below’ feature using the PVC pipe. Why is this better than just adding water from above?

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