water water every where with no where to go

[gardengirl13]

OK so this seems like a very dead forum topic here, I hope some of you who know bog/water gardens are still around.

The last few times I posted I talked about buying a house and moving a lot of my plants over. Well we closed the week before thanksgiving and moved in that next weekend and had our first big meal here on thanksgiving! yeah.

now the possibly bad, yet also maybe good part of the yard. We knew the drainage was poor in this area. Severe clay soil and a poorly designed development equals I now am the upset owner of a house that needs minor drainage work around the foundation (which we knew was an issue) but on the far end of the driveway on the edge of our property we have a swamp. As of today after many inches of rain and snow since we moved in it's about 4-6" deep at the deepest. Before we moved on on our final walkthrough before the rain is was muddy but not this wet. We plan on digging it out and fixing the drainage to go into the stream a bit better, but the "top" part of it may not be able to dry out much. So I've been researching bog gardens. Now I also want to plant stuff in the back of it as a screen to block the neighbor on that side. There are trees and grasses of some sort there that block part of it, but I want more of it blocked. The part closer to the road get very moist but doesn't stay as wet. It has a fancy little maple there that seems to be doing well. I would put up a short 4' picket and do planting along it to make it look kind of cottagey, but the town charges a lot for fencing permits, plus I'm not in the mood to deal with neighbor disputes over the property lines. the couple on the other side of us don't care, they have wood piles on our line and just kind of don't care where the line is. But they said the house across the other street from them wants to put up a fence and no one can agree on where the line is. But for free (well the cost of the plants) we can put up a hedge, the town won't charge us for that.

Another problem is deer. They've already eaten my favorite pine I planted, my hostas that are already dormant, my holly and azalea. sigh. So I'm hoping that with thicker planting it may keep them out more. They come in through that swampy area. Around the front we plan on doing either a boxwood or privet hedge and doing some nice flowering shrubs behind it, like forsythia or something. I plan on doing forsythia between the swampy area and the road to use as privacy screen of sorts. We did this in the last rental we had and it worked great. Untrimmed they really blocked the view even in winter and the deer couldn't get through it. It time and money permit we might just do forsythia around the whole property for a screen. It's surrounded in trees anyway right now, but the undergrowth isn't nice, I think it would look better with the forsythia.

Now I know sometimes forsythia can deal with water but not THIS much water. Any ideas on what to do here. I'd really prefer to do good drainage and have it moist, not a boggy area. But I'm not sure if we can do that on our own and we can't afford to hire someone to do that with the other work we have to pay people to do this spring. We plan on bringing in some fill and once we do the drainage we will put any leftover in this spot. But any ideas on taller and mid range plants? I hear some hibiscus do well in boggy areas and get to about 6' tall, but they aren't deer resistant. Willows, maybe a pussy willow or something like that? I plan on adding cardinal flowers, some water loving grasses and reedy stuff, some milkweedy stuff. I'd prefer it to be more natural and just kind of let it go. If I really had the physical ability I would leave it a bog, add a wooden walkway and make a great little bog garden. But I just can't do that any more.

Any other ideas?

[kHT]

Could I suggest Daphne, Butterfly bushes, Nandina domestica/ heavenly bamboo or Spiraea, all deer resistant.

[Chris_W]

Red twig dogwood loves wet feet and they can get big. Elderberry is natural to those conditions too. Here I planted some bald cypress and larch that the deer haven't touched. All of these like wet feet. So do most hydrangeas, but the deer like to nibble on them here.

This winter we are trying anti-bird netting and that has protected all of our arborvitae and other deer sensitive plants so far. We just wrapped them up in it and you can barely see it but it has stopped all the damage.

I wish you the best of luck. Make sure you also work on using some repellents like liquid fence, plantskyd, blood meal, etc to keep them away too.

Chris

[gardengirl13]

thanks everyone!! So far we've planted red twig dogwood, forsythia (if you plant it up high it'll settle into wet areas ok) pussy willow, elderberry, winterberry (so far the yellow ones proven winners are starting to sell this year-the red are on back order) vibernum, tri color willow, and another I can't remember the name of right now. I hope they all do well! We're slowly building up a living hedge and I think it'll do well.