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Repotting a Bog Bowl?

I was kind of wondering if I would have to like... change the peat in my bog bowl every couple years like you would with a potted plant? I should hope not... but really there's not much differences between the two.. size and drainage, that's just about it. A pot usually has drainage and my bog bowl does not. So what exactly is the point of repotting? Just to refresh the tannins and stuff or what?
 
I find a change of media every year or so is invigorating on plants.

Some Sarracenia lose their red color from the tannins with old media. You can change the media or replace the tannins with tea made from peat (or buy blackwater extract used in the aquarium hobby, I guess theoretically)

Oh I just realized I didn't really answer your question. No you don't have to as long as the media is healthy and there aren't anaerobic areas and it's not rotting.
 
That's good.. because that's A LOT of media to change. I'm talking like 5 gallons of peat and sand. Not to mention, the root systems will be massive in 2 years. I'm thinking that since my bog bowl is undrained, the tannins won't go anywhere, but if they do I'll take your advice and use the tea.
 
Be careful with an undrained container. Ever smelled Hydrogen sulfide? It's not nice to your nose. Or your plants' roots.
 
since my bog bowl is undrained, the tannins won't go anywhere

But neither will anything else that goes in there. For undrained things, I go by eye. If it's smelling funky (sulfur or otherwise) or there's a lot of decomposition going on or I have another noticeable reason to change the media, then I'll change the media. Another thing to watch out with such a large volume of media is compaction.

Remember with undrained containers that flooding is generally fine so long as the water is not stagnant for too long. During the winter (our rainy season) I need to dump my undrained pots every now and again during rainspells because the water stagnates because it isn't getting replace with rain. If I don't replace the water I get rot problems.

So, have you noticed anythign that'd warrant a media change?
 
Well since it rained yesterday, there is a bit of water sitting on top of the bowl right now, but when the sun comes out tomorrow most of it will evaporate. My bog bowl is pretty new, I built it maybe 2 months ago so I don't expect anything to warrant a media change yet. On the bottom of the bowl there is a small plug I can use to drain it if necessary. I think maybe if I flushed the whole thing with R/O water every once in a while it would keep it fresh, but we'll see.

Another thing.. what do you do with the old media that you remove? I no longer consider peat to be disposable and I would absolutely NOT want to just throw all of that out. I guess maybe if I rinsed it real well and let it dry out a bit then I could just reuse it for something else.

How do you actually change the media? Do you just dig out the plants.. bare root.. and then dump the rest out. That seems like it'd be the easiest way but it would definitely be hard on the plants. I guess that would be prime time for making divisions.
 
...Changing media is just repotting into the same pot with new media.
 
Another thing.. what do you do with the old media that you remove? I no longer consider peat to be disposable and I would absolutely NOT want to just throw all of that out. I guess maybe if I rinsed it real well and let it dry out a bit then I could just reuse it for something else.

I've been dumping much of my old soil in low lying areas of my yard to help fill the areas.
 
  • #10
Gloves? I mean it's just repotting I can't see what can be so hard about it.
 
  • #11
Peat is justa LOT of organic material, so you can use it for a thousand and one things. It's not good horticultural practice to reuse media. If it's too old for one plant, then it's too only for the other. However, there are caveats.

If the media just got waterlogged and is having trouble with anarobic bacteria, then you can remove the plant and presumably treat the substrate and have it be useable again.

Media that you're getting rid of simply because it's old is no longer useful for your CPs, but there are a thousand and one uses for it otherwise. Since peat is just organic material it can be very useful for the garden whether to supplement a particularly sandy or clay laden soil for general garden health or you can simply compost the material and "go with the flow."

Peat is versatile, whatever state it's in and I can't see any good reason to ever throw it away (though I'm sure someone could come up with some...)
 
  • #12
Well the thing with bog bowls is that they have like 100 times more peat than one pot and about 10 times the amount of plants so I will definitely not consider it to be an EASY job. I just prefer to be prepared as possible, ok?

I guess I should be able to find some use for the peat outside. None come to mind at the moment though.
 
  • #13
Put a pipe under the media as close to the bottom as you can get, so you can drain that old water out without disturbing your setup. Run a piece of one inch pipe and let it stick out so you can put a tube down inside to siphon the old water out. If it is going to rain let the rain soak through to wet the mix. This adds new fresh water to flush out any built up minerals. This is how I have my outdoor 4 foot by 8 foot bog garden setup. It works very well and is very useful.
 
  • #14
After the 5th read through I understood what you meant. I'm not sure it will be necessary since I do have that little plug on the bottom that I can open to drain the water. My bog actually dries out quite often so there isn't always water sitting in it. After a while the peat pulls away from the side and gets a bit spongy, but it stays moist.
 
  • #15
Frankly, if there's so much media, it's almost a waste. Nothing really needs THAT much root space. I've got some Neps and Sarrs with pretty extensive root systems, some even have roots growing out the bottom by a good bit, but they still grow fine.

I'd say save yourself the trouble and use a more shallow container. Maybe I'm misreading here, but it sounds like theres a lot more media than there needs to be. Too much media leads to problems like the ones you've mentioned (having to deal with all of the extra media,) compaction, a greater potential to let anarobic bacteria take over, etc.

I can't think of a good reason to have a large amount of excess media. You need some room for the roots to grow in to, granted, but going overboard leads to annoyances.
 
  • #16
Well I squeezed as many plants in there as possible.. and actually the reason I made the bog bowl in the first place was to keep the media from freezing solid in the winter.. that's the reason that my sarrs and VFTs keep dying every winter. So I figured that a bog bowl would keep the rhizomes and roots more protected. I'm not sure how effective it will be, but I am also going to build a cold frame for it as well, but with the cold frame I wouldn't need the bog bowl in the first place... so yeah the bog bowl is probably only going to be a temporary thing. After a year or so I will take it apart... it wastes too much water as well.. when we go a week without rain I have to pour in a gallon of distilled water to keep it nice and moist. I do like the way it looks right now though. Looks so.. natural.

Here's a list of the plants in it...

S. jonesii (or S. alabamensis)
S. 'Dixie Lace'
S. purpurea
S. minor
S. 'Judith Finn'
S. 'Scarlette Belle'
VFT 'Big Vigorous'
VFT 'Akai Ryu'
VFT 'Dente'

I made sure there was enough room for the sarrs to get fullly grown and I really think I made the best use of the space that I have... I actually kinda feel like I overdid it a bit.
 
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