The Bog

April 1999: I had spent the winter dreaming, planning, and itching to get started. I spent hours picking leaves off of the bottom. One day, hubby & I went to Wichita to visit "Scenic Landscape", a local water garden store. We asked them how they cleaned out all their ponds, and they told us to drain the pond. (IMHO, this was a BIG mistake!) Anyways, we did drain the pond, and discovered lots of little "goodies" like dead frogs - GROSS! We used the shop vac and got the 3' section pretty good, but decided to leave the deep hole alone. When we finally were ready to refill the pond, it was 10:30 at night, and COLD. I was desperate for a blanket and dry socks.

June 1999: Summer break is finally here, and the first thing I did was dig a 4'x7'x18" bog directly next to the pond. I was planning on making it deeper, but I was digging by myself, and when I hit the 18" mark, I decided that that was the perfect depth for a bog garden. I padded it with newspapers, but didn't worry about carpet or sand, since the bog doesn't need the protection that the pond did. I placed the liner in, filled it with water, and let my son play in it for the next couple of days. I figured that waiting awhile would get everything good and settled, plus it gave my son something to do! I placed my edging rocks around, and then dumped most of my dirt back in. I didn't punch any holes in the liner, as I've read you should do, because I plan to use the bog as a filter. After the dirt settled, I got some chat from the city (that small rock that they use on streets) and dumped it on the dirt, and then put about 4" of larger river rock on top. Then hubby (bless his heart) got down in the ditch and dug me up some cattails, arrowheads, and bullrush to plant in the bog.

Two days after completing the bog, we participated in a pond tour. For a town the population of 500, we had 11 ponds on the tour. There are two more ponds in town, but they couldn't participate this year. I was impressed that a town the size of ours had that many! Smart people *L*! The tour was so much fun! If you ever get a chance to participate, I strongly recommend it. Not only did we enjoy ourselves, but the pond has looked so good since!

July 1999: Earlier, I mentioned that draining the pond was a mistake. July is almost over, and our algae bloom is just now starting to go away. After talking to other ponders, I have come to believe that we just restarted the entire cycle by draining the pond. We probably won't drain it again for another 2-3 years, and then we'll drain the entire pond and clean it good.

Our plants are finally maturing to a point of needing thinned down. We have an average of 10 lilies per day in pale yellow, white, and pinks (they are supposed to be red, but I suppose pink is close enough). I purchased one of those cheap lily sets at Lowe's that contained a red, white, and blue lily. The red and white lilies give me the most blooms out of all my plants! The koi ate the blue one.

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