Notes to myself: Minibog improvements

I’ve been growing some small carnivorous plants (mainly Nepenthes and sundews) in a tank indoors, but a couple years ago, just for fun I started some Sarracenia (pitcher plant) seeds. Well, what do you know, the darned things actually grew. So this spring, when it was clear I wouldn’t be able to keep them in small pots or winter them over in a fishtank anymore, I put together this freestanding outdoor minibog.

For this first attempt, I picked up a pretty standard (you could even say, “bog standard”, harhar) rectangular planter without drainage holes, put a couple inches of gravel in the bottom, stood a couple pieces of 4″ PVC pipe on the ends, then filled it up with sphagnum peat moss. Well, since the planter was much deeper than the plant pots I was sticking in, I put a couple large rocks at the bottom to take up space too. A small overflow hole drilled just below the soil line prevents it turning into a pond.

Minibog with some s. leucophylla, s. flava and a mystery type. The Nepenthes has already been brought inside due to frost hazard.
Minibog with some s. leucophylla, s. flava and a mystery type. The Nepenthes has already been brought inside due to frost hazard.

This first cut worked out all right. The peat stayed plenty wet with only a bit of watering during dry spells, and water wicked into the pitcher pots (through peat-peat contact via the drainage holes) well enough despite being plastic. The PVC pipes, intended to take up space and provide a place to sink a couple 1L pop bottles as an emergency gravity-watering system, turned out to be unnecessary, and mostly a good place to grow mosquitoes.

Notes for next year:

On watering: The scheme with the PVC pipes (besides taking up the extra space in the planter) was that if the water table ever got to the very bottom and I was on vacation (or just forgetting to water the thing, because that’s something I would do), water-filled pop bottles notched at the bottom would slowly release their contents to maintain 1/4″ or so of water at the bottom (enough to keep things moist enough to stay alive, without immediately evaporating). It turns out the gravel alone works just as well for this. But I did like the fact that the pipes gave an easy visual indication of the water level in the minibog, and a quick way to fill ‘er up. So for next year, a mosquitoproof watering hole / level indicator: It turns out that 1.5″ PVC and a pingpong ball are an almost perfect fit: juuuust enough clearance for the ball to float freely, but not enough to let flying pests reach the water. Brilliant!

1.5" PVC pipe and pingpong ball as water level indicator and mosquito excluder.
1.5″ PVC pipe and pingpong ball as water level indicator and mosquito excluder.

On wintering (to move or not to move): So far I’ve been providing winter dormancy for various plants by keeping them in a fishtank in a cold room of the house. Except for one N. purpurea (Home Depot rescue), I’ve got nothing that’s winter-hardy where I live (USDA zone 5). Reading up on the subject, it looks like people are successfully wintering not-so-hardy pitchers here if they are dug into the ground (no freestanding pots) and mulched. So next year I might take this bog and sink it into the ground, for plants that can be wintered outdoors, and make a smaller one that can easily be brought inside for the tropical stuff (I stuck a Nepenthes in the bog for the season, and it seemed to like it). Keep the pingpong ball watering scheme for both. I’m hoping with the infrastructure of a bog underneath, the fishtank will no longer be necessary for maintaining humidity or keeping things wet over the intervals I remember to water them. (That, and it looks like the fishtank is needed for actual fish now.)

More on moving: Another reason to bury this one is this design of planter was apparently not really intended to be full of water: after a couple seasons, it’s really starting to bow out in the middle.

On wildlife: Something(s) just love to go in there and dig little holes everywhere. I can’t really tell whether it’s squirrels, birds or both. Likewise, when I tried starting some live Sphagnum on the top, it was quickly dug out and removed (probably by nesting birds). In the end I had to cover most of the surface with good sized rocks to keep it from looking like a minefield. Sprinkling the surface with cinnamon and cayenne pepper powder had no effect. Next year, possibly some better wildlife protection scheme…


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One response to “Notes to myself: Minibog improvements”

  1. Obsoe Avatar
    Obsoe

    I had some nice Pitchers and a Big Venus Flytrap long,long ago when we left for the weekend- and my (ex)wife’s stupid Hamster found a way in and out of it’s tank- and proceeded to move my carnivores PIECE! BY! PIECE! out of their pots and into a corner of the animal’s freaking tank. My monstrous indoor Ficus provided a fun tunneling feature,(till the 6′ tree collapsed). It had taken me years to get good at low N2 sandy bog habitats,and my pride and joy Venus was about ten inches across when violated like that.(Hamsters just hate licking Vick’s Vaporub out of their hair!{I had to let it live,the wife and all})… !Beware the soft and fuzzy!. You can always trust the uncomfortable,cause it doesn’t lie. Beat the fuzzy things Mercilessly!

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