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Making a bog garden
Creating a bog garden makes it easier to keep foliage plants like hostas or ferns as well as other damp-lovers like primulas and astilbes looking their best without having to water each one by hand.
The secret of a successful bog garden is that, although it appears to be connected to a pond, it is in fact separate and the pond water is kept away from the soil and vice versa. You can add a bog garden to one side of an existing pond, create a pond and bog garden at the same time or just have a bog garden on its own. It can be whatever size you like.
PVC liner or polythene sheet; builders' sand; spade; pegs and string; seep hose, connector and hose pipe; garden fork; gravel; garden compost or potting compost; bog plants; scissors or a sharp knife; bark chips.
Dig out a saucer-shape hole, 60 cm deep at the deepest point (you could get away with 30 cm if you were just growing smaller
perennials). Keep the top soil separate from any subsoil.
Drape the lining material over the hole and hold the edges in place with some stones or bricks. Press the liner down and make some drainage holes in it using a garden fork.
Add 5 cm or so of gravel or pea shingle. Set up the seep hose as directed on the packet and connect it to a hose pipe. Cover the seep hose with gravel, then return the topsoil mixed in with some garden compost or potting compost. Cut off the excess liner well before you finish filling with soil.
Plant up with bog plants, mid to late spring is a good time to plant up a bog garden. Mulch with bark chips. Keep moist but not waterlogged at all times.
Dig a saucer shaped hole alongside your pond.
Fit liner, add layer of gravel, and set up seep hose.
Plant bog garden with selection of moisture loving plants.