• With lighter evenings and my OH away for work, I've tried to finish off the attempt at drainage and starting on the mini bog garden.

    Unfortunately all bog garden tutorials use pond lining with holes in. So I'm just going with what I think makes sense.

    I've dug a bed out down to the clay. Made sure its a proper layer of clay, smoothed and compacted it. Next I'll chuck a load of mulch in the bottom followed by top soil and some compost (see diagram)

    The random ridge in the middle is a gravel trench I ran from the other side of the lawn to move water across (I hadn't decided on the size or dug the bed at that point). The idea is water will drain from the right of the lawn to the bog garden, as will the water from the from the gravel trench and the gravel in my woodland area.

    Still need to finalise my plant list. They need to be wildlife focused, and not need too much sun. Ideally native if possible.

    My only concerns are those bottle brush things in the adjacent bed which my OH loves but spread, and the creeping jenny. I like the creeping jenny, but worry about it suffocating the other plants.

    Also the lawn is such a fucking state right now. But fingers crossed by next year everything will be lovely.

  • those bottle brush things in the adjacent bed which my OH loves

    This is persicaria bistorta, I love it too, but it certainly does spread. It's a knotweed relative. It loves damp soil too

  • Cheers, that's good to know what it's called.

    It's very handy for that spot as it's fine with being totally waterlogged over winter and having little sun.

    Given how dense is gets I'm thinking I'll just cut it back into a slightly more curved shape and try and use irises to match the height and also be able to get out ahead of it earlier in the year.

    I've got almost 100 plants on my long list that I've got to have a look through to work out what to put in there. Although once I've done a bit of filtering it shouldn't be too hard.

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