Bogging in New Jersey

[addy1]

Most of mine are bare root. If they had a lot of root growth in the stuff I either washed away the stuff or just stuck in the bog.

 

[addy1]

They grow no matter what you do.

 

[Lisak1]

They grow no matter what you do.

Truer words have never been spoken. Even if you try to STOP them, they grow.

 

[bobchapman]

I'm now trying to keep my local mason's yard in business, buying pea gravel and larger stones. Here's the patio area alongside the pond:

I bent up, by hand, the 4" x 1/8" steel retaining band, drove posts into the ground (1/2" square steel x 30" long), and welded the band to the posts:

I'm not a very good welder, but this gave me a chance to practice what little I do know.

I also broke down and bought a pallet of river rocks, with which to line the stream and hide the edge of the liner. I supplemented those with many "found" rocks scavenged from building sites. The place where I also buy soil views their culled rocks as waste, and are happy that I scavenge from their location, too.

The most odorous part was scavenging used horse bedding and tilling it into the planting areas as I got them outlines with rocks. The riding stable dumps the horse bedding and the waste contained in it into a 32-cubic-yard dumpster. They are happy to have people come and take some. One hops into the dumpster and heaves the "stuff" out into one's trailer. I suppose that I got a couple of yards of it this last time. Tilling it in cuts the aroma quite a bit, though I find that when it rains, a bit of the odor is more apparent. So far, no complaints from the neighbors!

The next few days will be occupied with fitting stones into the patio area by the pond. I have the tile saw pulled into position, and have placed the first set of stones, with a lot of cutting. Pictures next time.

 

[myswtsins]

You've been a busy bee! Nice work! Love all the mortared stones and your washing table! I lined a metal crate with mesh, shoveled it in, rinsed, dumped...many many many times! lol

I agree with the others, buy what plants you like and see how they do. This is what I've done and found that plants that should do well in my location, don''t and others that shouldn't DO. What I have found works well in shade is taros, pickrel rush, bloody dock, marsh marigold, cinnamon fern and this year I tried inpatients and they did great with water almost up to their stems/crown(?).

I plant everything bare root into plain pea gravel. The first year (when the pond is brand new and clean) they will not grow much, unless you have a ton of fish or fertilize (which I didn't), but the second year they do much better. I lost a lot of plants over winter that I planted in early fall. I think being bare rooted in a fresh clean pond, late in the season didn't give them enough time to establish a strong root system.

 

[addy1]

I had impatiens in one of my ponds, totally floating in water, total shade it did wonderful.

Looking great love all the details you are doing.

 

[bobchapman]

Thank you both for the plant suggestions.
I spent the day fitting stones together in the patio. But first, i had to re-do yesterday's work: the stones just weren't leveled properly, which was going to cause problems later in the process. A half-day down the old commode! But tomorrow will be another day ...

 

[bobchapman]

I've been on vacation (vacation from retirement; a great concept!) for the past week, so little progress. However, yesterday I got back at it, laying stones in the patio around the pond:

The pieces of pipe are my attempt to get the stones all in a plane.
I have a number of different types of stone remaining from other projects, and am using them up here.

The centerpiece is a cistern cover that I unearthed on the property:

It now has a new life!

Laying the stone is not conceptually difficult: Find a stone that fits reasonably closely with its neighbors, rake the gravel by hand to the proper depth, place the stone, and hit it with a rubber mallet to set it, check with the pipes to see that it's "in-plane", remove the stone, adjust the gravel, hit it again, etcetera. When the stones don't fit well, or when I come to the edge of the space, cut the stone on the tile saw, and try again.

 

[bobchapman]

I'm also putting in "sockets" in the ground so that I can add netting in the future if needed. The sockets are 1" copper pipe, driven into the ground, taking care to miss all the plumbing that's already down there! Into those sockets, I figure I insert a smaller-diameter pipe to act as either just a tie-off point for netting, or for the legs of a taller netting structure:

The tops of the pipes will be about at the level of the patio stones, so that no one trips on them, and capped with standard pipe caps when not in use. Here you can see one of them poking up out of the stone work.

 

[bobchapman]

Spent part of today fitting stones into the patio around the pond. Cut, fit, re-cut, hammer into position. Rinse, repeat. No pix today; maybe tomorrow.

I have put my first plant into the bog. From Craigslist I got a bunch of hostas from a man who was weeding out his garden to plant something different. I put a number of them in the woods, but two into the bog as an experiment to see how they fare. They will have to establish themselves quickly, as the temperatures and daylight hours are both declining now!

 

[bobchapman]

Got a new pallet of stones for the patio around the pond. Since then: rain, rain, rain, and more predicted --- zero progress!

 

[addy1]

The rain missed us we got less than an inch.

 

[bobchapman]

Clear weather for the last couple of days --- beautiful days in fact.

Finished up the paving stones that make up the patio around the pond:

I put in a metal band welded to metal stakes driven into the ground. Apparently I missed driving those stakes into the plumbing! Whee! The stones are all set in pea gravel, which is then also raked into the joints.

Another view:

Today and yesterday, I spread some topsoil around the outside of that patio area. That made it look "cleaned up".

Next is to make some steps up around the bog. There's about an 18" grade change as you walk around each end of the bog, which I think is too steep for a gravel path: the gravel would all eventually end up at the bottom of the slope. So it will be a concrete base, with some of the left-over patio stones on the treads and some of the flat round stones on the risers. SO, there's more digging in my future to prepare the base.

 

[bobchapman]

I also got the rain garden water distribution finished. The rain garden will take the overflow from the pond during rainstorms:

The inflow, at the right side, is from the sump pump in the pump pit. When the pond gets too full, it overflows into the pump pit via an open standpipe. Then the sump pump puts it into the rain garden.

 

[addy1]

That is looking so good