Ligularia dentata 'Britt Marie Crawford'
I have illusions of grandeur and have created what I like to call the bog garden all of which makes me sound like I am auditioning to play Miranda Hart’s mother. The reason for this grandiose pretension is that I grew to dislike my wildlife pond with vengeance.
The pond has been in for about 7 years ever since we pulled down a ridiculously huge conifer which we inherited with the house and were left with a large gaping hole and nothing to fill it in with. This is definitely not the way to go about making a pond. The location was wrong – half way up a sloping garden and it was virtually under the branches of a large prunus tree. Now I know that some people say siting your pond under a tree is good as the shade helps control algae but you have to have the patience of the saint to keep scoping all the leaves out and the title of this blog is purely aspirational. The first couple of years it was alright not great but I hoped it would be. However, it deteriorated. Somehow I managed to kill off three waterlilies, the net I tried to throw over the pond to stop leaves falling in failed and it just started to clog up more and more. I have spent hours fishing leaves out, scoping gloop out and raking duckweed out. The only thing that was good about the pond were the frogs.
Iris siberica
But there comes a time when you have to bite the bullet and admit defeat and that time came this summer. The pond was getting more and more congested and the lack of rain didn’t help with moisture loving perennials sitting high and dry and wilting. I also got a cat who I have since discovered is a real hunter and is quite partial to chasing frogs. The turning point was when I visited a Westonbury Garden out in Herefordshire which is entirely based around water and they had a wonderful bog garden. The thought process started and is often the case much planning was done in the early hours.
I dithered about it mainly due to the prospect of emptying out the pond and all the foul-smelling gloop I would have to encounter. Luckily I went to visit Karen and she suggested that I just pierce some holes in the liner and let the water drain out, this would also give the frogs and other wildlife time to make new accommodation plans. What an excellent plan and why didn’t I think of that – the garden blogging world is so helpful.
Darmera peltata
I returned and started piercing holes, the water drained, the mud emerged, more holes were pierced. The pond plants, with the exception of a tall grass, were composted and I started work on the plants around the edge. We had to build up one side to take account of the fall of the land and luckily all this soil went quite a way to filling the pond up. I cut back the liner so it only covered the bottom deep section of the pond. All the old compost from pots and grow bags were emptied in last week and then the planting commenced.
The pond in February before everything grew up
I had wonderful planting plans in my head using all the plants from around the pond and the moisture loving plants from the surrounding border. However, my night-time planning sessions hadn’t really worked out that the quantity of plants was in excess of the space available. By the time I had hauled the large clump of Ligularia across to a new damper location, added a quarter of the Rheum tubers, the tall unknown grass thing rescued from the pond and a vast fern the space was getting full. Also added was a King Fern, some Iris siberica, a Dermera peltata, and some Marsh Marigold. Some Foxgloves and bulbs were planted where the new border becomes drier.
The new bog garden looking very bare
In my head it will look wonderous, lush and full. Whether or not this will be the case only a growing season will tell. I really struggled to imagine how it would look when none of the plants had leaves on making it hard to see how the different foliage would work together. I also have loads of Candelabra Primula seedlings to add as a sort of glue to the planting. So we shall wait and see and I will report back next year I promise even if it is rubbish!
In other news I have signed up to take the 10 week English Landscape Garden course at Oxford University. It starts at the end of January and hopefully will entertain me while the weather is too cold for gardening. I should have more time by then as it is my last monthly local radio slot this weekend. I am only on for 15 minutes maximum but I have really enjoyed it this year especially seeing behind the scenes. Also my twice weekly posts for Yell.com Know How pages will stop at the end of February. I have found these challenging at times as I have written the posts for 3 years now and it has got to the point where I find myself repeating things which I suppose is only to be expected in gardening. I have enjoyed the weekly discipline of writing posts to deadline and I have learnt loads through all the research I have done. But as they say all good things have to come to and end.
