What's new
By:
Filters
TerraForums Venus Flytrap, Nepenthes, Drosera and more talk

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Building new bog gardens and a stone leaf pathway

Bonnie

Bonnie

My greenhouse needs a new entrance, the current one is rather ugly. This picture is a bit old, there are now 2 3'x20' raised beds along the wall to the right for berry bushes, and an L shaped trellis around the right and back of the greenhouse with grapes to shield it from the afternoon sun, and the dead grass is now completely overrun with weeds where the water seeps out from the greenhouse floor. I'm tired of my ugly, weedy entrance (the stinging nettles and those pokey seed pod things are the best when you're barefoot), so my daughter and I decided to install some old hard pond liners and a pathway.

Old pic, but you get the idea



The new plan involves digging up all the dead grass and weeds (about halfway done before it started to rain), installing stone looking edgers, putting in a lima bean and round pond liner, one on each side, and making a bunch of leaf themed paving stones. I'm thinking mulch and creeping thyme for around the ponds and pavers, but haven't decided yet.

Here are the two ideas we will be trying out for the pavers

http://www.homesteadgardens.com/pavers/

http://familycrafts.about.com/od/steppingstones/ig/Garden-Stepping-Stone-Photos/Leaf-Shaped-Stepping-Stone.htm

For the bogs I was planning on Sarracenias, which are the only things I've grown outdoors here so far (zone 10a), but I'd like to try some other plants as well. I'll be updating this with more pictures, I'm going to be using this thread for motivation to get this sucker done :)
 
Love your ideas. I like the leaf-shaped pavers myself. Mulch is hard on the bare feet, haha, go with the thyme. I am looking forward to the progress of this project, maybe it will motivate me as well. :-D

When you get the bogs set up, let me know and I can help you out filling them with sarrs and dews next spring. I can supply VFT also, but don't know how well they do in zone 10a?
 
Bonnie, though you may already know this I will say it just in case you don't ... make sure you have eye protection on and a breathing mask when working with cement. The dust is not something you want to inhale or get into your eyes.

Make sure the rubber gloves you use are durable/strong.

Were you thinking of digging up all the weedy area or just where the "ponds" will go? If you were planning on digging them all up, I would suggest as an alternative the method used in "lasagna" gardening might be worthwhile. (Googling should provide a lot of hits.)

Hypertufa as opposed to straight cement might also be of interest to you, if you haven't done that before. http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/hypertufa/
 
The mulch would just be going around the pavers, it was either that or gravel, but I think the thyme would fill in better with the mulch (16' pathway, would be hard to get that many plants to fill right off). I started the first three pavers last night, leaves, a layer of mortar, hardware cloth, and then a layer of cement in cake pans, can't wait to see how they come out on Monday. Some bog plants would be awesome DJ, my daughter would be thrilled :)

I looked up the lasagna gardening DragonsEye, and it looks like that would raise the path too much to where it would be spilling into the doorway. The hypertufa stuff is awesome though! I think I'll stick to the cement for the pavers since those take a lot of abuse, but I saw some neat sculpture and pot ideas I want to try later with that stuff.

I'll get some pics tomorrow of the first stepping stones, if they turned out well that is >.<
 
First batch of stepping stones, outside to cure. The only thing I don't like is the edges of the giant leaf were rather buried, so I had to carve it out with a knife, thinking of getting a file later and maybe smoothing those edges down more.

 
No prob, ma'am. :) Figured I'd mention lasagna gardening to give you an alternative option to a lot of backbreaking digging. Perhaps it might be useful in areas further away from the greenhouse.

Stones look good. You do know to keep the pavers wet while curing, yes? You can even set them in buckets of water while they do so. From what I understand, hypertufa is extremely durable ... think I read somewhere even more so than straight cement.

Oh, an another related item that you might also be aware of -- but in case you aren't -- there are dyes specifically made for cement if you wanted to play around with color. For that matter, if you or a friend are into working with stained glass or fired clay, there are a plethora of ways to dress up the pavers. Even paint can be used. The following is one of several I made for my folks years back:



​
 
Wow! that really turned out great!
 
I never finished updating this before the dog dug it all up lol. The dog is now on an aerial trolley line in the yard so he can no longer dig holes around the greenhouse, the bogs are refilled, just need to finish fixing the rest of the path he ruined. In the meantime I'm starting to pour pavers for the second new greenhouse, thought I would mix it up a bit instead of just doing the leaves. A neighbor gave me three boxes of stained glass when she was moving and I have the cutting supplies arriving tomorrow, so thinking of trying some embedded stained glass pavers. Going to work out some designs later for Nepenthes, Heliamphora, and Sarracenia, and also some dart frogs and see if I'm actually capable of cutting them out. My mom rediscovered a frog paver kit I had bought ten years ago while cleaning her closet so I just finished this today and have already poured my second one in the mold.

 
I have something like that, only its a turtle.
 
  • #10
Cute frog!
 
  • #11
DragonsEye said:
No prob, ma'am. :) Figured I'd mention lasagna gardening to give you an alternative option to a lot of backbreaking digging. Perhaps it might be useful in areas further away from the greenhouse.

Stones look good. You do know to keep the pavers wet while curing, yes? You can even set them in buckets of water while they do so. From what I understand, hypertufa is extremely durable ... think I read somewhere even more so than straight cement.

Oh, an another related item that you might also be aware of -- but in case you aren't -- there are dyes specifically made for cement if you wanted to play around with color. For that matter, if you or a friend are into working with stained glass or fired clay, there are a plethora of ways to dress up the pavers. Even paint can be used. The following is one of several I made for my folks years back:



​
Click to expand...
That's pretty awesome, Paul! My wife wants to do pavers as a walkway for our veggie garden and it'd be awesome to make these!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top