Post by brian on Jan 8, 2006 17:00:25 GMT -5
Hi, my name is Brian. This is a really informative site! My interest is growing native hardy varieties outside but I also like to push the envelope and experiment with others.. I have a small basket planter on a shelf of my water pond in Niagara Falls. The pond is about a foot deep, the basket is planted with sphagnum moss with a top level about 4 inches above water. A bulkhead tee from my eavestrough flushes the pond with rainwater periodically. On occasion during drought I have to top up the pond with tap water but eventually a rainstorm clears out the hardness. Downside: Pond fish wont live in it, they need the hardness (but I prefer CPs anyways!) and birds or skunks pull apart the moss and my plants get tossed in the water, so I had to put a cage around it. Also, the protective snow keeps melting down here. I also have a bog garden near Bancroft on Lake Baptiste. I dug out about a half a cubic meter of sand a foot back from the lake and backfilled with peat moss. The pit is a few inches deeper than low lake level so the bed is kept moist with soft water even during August. Water table ranges from maybe 4 inches to 18 inches below the surface. The upside is reliable snow cover, it builds to 2 or 3 feet over winter and does not melt. Also I suspect the heat given off by the lake as it freezes provides some moderation in the early winter, before the snow piles up. The downside is the air temperature can hit –35 and the occasional rogue wave in the spring can wash away small fragile things like d. rotundifolia. I put in a big mossy log to protect them next spring. Voles dig tunnels in the peat and the sundews vanish down the holes but this fall I have seen a lot of minks hunting voles so maybe that will help.
Again, great web site Syble!
Again, great web site Syble!