Gardening on the Edge by Diana Wayland
This spring I created a damp bed – in a prolonged drought! Except, at the time, I had no idea the usual spring dry spell was going to last. And last…
I had sound reasons for this. We have a patch of ground that gets very waterlogged in rainy spells, even slightly flooding the adjacent home-built greenhouse paths. It made sense to dig over the soggiest bit, which was grassed, to create an L-shaped bed, and to sink a small half-barrel in the turn of the L to form a pond.
The soil in this area is heavy, and lends itself to a damp bed, essentially the same as a bog garden. I raised it a few inches and edged it with rocks, of which we have loads. These were narrow, but large enough to avoid being accidentally dislodged, and the soil behind them holds them more firmly in place.
No pond fish (too small) but I did want some aquatics, including yellow flag iris, a local wild flower, and others like the species form of Houttuynia, which will overwinter in the greenhouse. I raised the baskets on engineering bricks and used some…
