So many things going on, so many things to talk about. However I need to save some things for when I'm away. Let's look at pone of the things I go tup to this morning (Before the strong sun drove me back indoors for the early afternoon. I started to weed the bog garden and it became clear that the bog garden is not very boggy. When we moved in there was a contorted willow in the front garden - a specimen plant. My wife didn't like it - I think because it reminded her of Medusa and snakes and she has a great fear of snakes (are you listening Prof. Freud) (een though therearen't any land snakes in Rotuma in the pacific - though the black and white striped sea snakes are fairly common and there are often Moray Eeels slithering around the coral pools when the tide down out on the fringe reef - but I digress) and I didn't liker it because it meant that you couldn't see my rockery from the window in the dining room (aka the games room/ the music room/ the computer room/ the small lounge - depending on what I want to call it at the moment). At the time we were poor but we were happy - the disp0lay was only around six heathers, a burgundy glow Ajuga, a couple of house leeks and half a dozen football sized stones from the back garden but it was a rockery to me.
Anywho I dug out the willow in the first spring we were here and then laid down a double layer of pool liner (not cheap) and filled the 2 metre by 1 metre by 1 metre deep hole with hlaf of the soil then added multipurpose compost from B&Q - 6 bags of 150 litres each that's... 900 litres of soil. It is supposed to be peat in a bog garden ( I wanted to grow carnivorous plants and bog plants and they need peat and almost no nutrients in the soil) but peat is expensive plus I reasoned that the peat based compost would exhaust pretty quickly and be as good at the real thing. As it happened the carnivourous plants never did germinate either in the bog garden or any other place (but I'm still trying). I planted half a dozen Ajuga reptens (bugle) on the northern side - in the slight slope of the bog garden and they have done great. Literally from 6 B&Q plants we must have 3 or 4 square meters of plants now and continuing to grow. 
Anyhow today I realised that the bog doesn't look very boggy so I set the hose in, turned on the water and waited, and waited, and waited. Now I know that tap water shouldn't be used for a bog garden - the chlorine kills sensitive plants (more about that a different blog) but I reasoned that it would be a few days before I could get any plants to put in, during which time the sun would have boiled off the chlorine - and I might even try for a few pond plants too. So I waited some more.
While I waited I helped the Ajuga in it's battle with the creeping buttercups that keep trying the infilitrate through the patc h. Fortunately the buttercup is doing very poorly against the bugle - they have very similar lifestyles - creeping runners which root about every 6 to 9 inches. 
I don't think the bugle needs much help from me but I was waiting for the bog to fill and once you are in the mood pulling up buttercups can be very satisfying. And then I noticed that the burgundy Ajuga on one corner (added 18 months ago - from the original plant in the rockery) has met the Braunherz Ajuga described above -the dark one. I wonder which one is going to win?
In the left corner wearing burgundy, cream and green leaves is Burgundy Glow, in the right corner wearing dark bronze leaves in Braunherz. Now... Fight!. The winner will take on Caitlins Giant which is claiming the South East corner and looks a big bruiser (but it doesn't seem to have the soil grabbing and overall tenacity of the other two varieties). 
I weeded both ot the contenders to make it fair and await the outcome . My heart says Burgubdy Glow as that was one of the very first plants I bought for the rockery in the very first month we came to Tipperty - well before the bog garden came into being, but my head says the Braunherz - it is very smoothering - it can even out fight the creeping buttercup so it must be one hell of a creeper. Oh - and I did get to see the blue flowers (though not of those at the bog garden - we have some behind the gate at the base of the fence shaded by the shrubs), vivid blue flowers against the dark leaves. 
Oh, and in case you were wondering - the bog garden took an hour to fill to the lip of the liner - clearly the "bog" part of Bog Garden hadn't got through to someone. An hour to fill - and five minutes to drop down again so that the water wasn't visible. I'll check again on Friday (Road trip tomorrow) and see how far down the water has gone - but it looks like there is a hole in my liner dear Lisa, dear Lisa, there's hole in my liner, dear Lisa a hole (possible from when I dug out and transplanted the kniphofia).
