Tuesday, September 9, 2008
 My Self-Made Bog BridgeMy bog was dug as an addition to my pond, specifically to be "My Bog"
and was a real pain to dig out. It is lined with a pond liner separate
from my pond and was up and running as my official bog about a year
before I even lined my pond back in August of 2007. It is about 2 feet
deep and I filled it up with peat moss taking about a week before the
peat moss was totally absorbed with water. I am aware of the lack of
nutrient value in the bags of peat moss I dumped into the lined hole in
the ground that was dug in my backyard. I did throw in a bag of manure
"for good measure" - mainly because I had a bag of manure laying around
when I was filling up my bog with peat moss. My whole bog project could
be defined as the result of some unexplained subconscious need I held
for a bog in my backyard with cattails growing from it. Perhaps some
strange past life experience at play in the depths of my mind?? And a bog of course needed a "Bog Bridge". Last summer (2007) I drove to Menard's and loaded up some 2/4's of cheap treated lumber in my old Jeep Cherokee and personally made the bridge with my two hands and you can tell by the uneven cuts on my lumber - it was made prior to the purchase of any of my power tools! Last year I asked one of the guys I had hired to work on remodeling my house if he would use his power saw and even out the edges on my bog bridge. He refused saying that it looked "quaint" and he wouldn't want to change it. My Bog Bridge is a high traffic area for non-humans. My dogs love to use it and so do squirrels and an assort of birds go hopping over it also. They all seem to have as much fun with it as I do.  I designed my pond to overflow into my bog with heavy rains and subsequently after the peat moss in my bog can hold no more water, the excess water than drains further into one of my flower beds - and with REALLY heavy rains it will drain out of that flower bed down the back of my lot into the alley. That flower bed after a year has yet to show any evidence of flooding from bog and pond overflow and we have experienced some very heavy rains since I finished the pond. That bog is one huge sponge that holds water!! My peat bog does fascinate me. I
left the dead leaves that accumulated on the bog from last fall to just
stay there and the cattails I had planted in 2007 came alive this
spring. Only after heavy rains will there be water on the surface and
then you will see many many birds using the bog to take their baths.
Just recently I have been seeing alot of robins hop down and walk
around between the cattails. Is it a mosquito magnet? I have watched my
bog this summer and only infrequently is there any "standing water" in
the bog - only after heavy rains and this standing water disappears
very rapidly - the bog is like one hungry sponge. My
bog also comes in handy when I've had iris arrive via the mail and I
don't have time to get them into the ground. I just poke them into the
bog next to the cattails and they seem almost too happy there - to be
then transplated into my yard. In fact at this time I have some tall
iris growing in the bog to see if they will bloom next spring in the
bog - it would be a pretty Two " not level" bricks - place of separation between pond and bog I used cinder blocks to separate my pond and bog. When the pond begins to top off due to heavy rainfall (or when I top off my pond due to water loss by evaporation) you can watch the water from the pond drain then down into the bog. Once the bog is totally saturated with water you can then watch the bog then drain down into the flower bed. There is no way that one of my fish can be washed into the bog when my pond is overflowing into the bog because that spillway is essentially really small. I've been really pleased with this pond overflow devise of the bog. I can manipulate the pond liner at this separation point to essentially determine the water level I want in my pond. Given all the water off my house with its rubber roof goes through the french drain into my pond - there can be alot of water flowing into my pond during a heavy rain - yet, this bog system handles this excess water very tidily and very low-tech!  "bog feature" in the spring since iris leaves are similar in shape to cattail - they look like a happy family together. |
