A. There are many plants that love a marshy environment with saturated soil. You need to choose plants with different textures, heights, color and leaf shape to create visual harmony and ecological balance.
Plants that inhabit saturated soil provide cover for birds, small insects and other creatures.
Plant the surrounding area to blend in or create a backdrop for the bog. Following is a list of plants with a brief description that will do well in a bog:
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Variegated Sweet Flag - Iris-like leaves, green and cream colored stripes. Small conical flowers. |
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Flowering Rush - Bronze-colored shoots that turn olive green. Rose pink flowers on tall stems. |
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Calla Palustris - Looks a lot like a calla lily, but likes the water. White flowers and red berries. |
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Papyrus or Paper Reed - Evergreen, leafless stems with tufts of leaves and flower sprays on tips. |
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Chameleon - Spreading perennial with red stems and leaves variegated with yellow, red and green. |
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Water Iris - As the name suggests, but will grow and flower in standing water, various colors. |
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Bog Bean - Three-lobed olive green leaves on sheathed stalks with purple flowers from pink buds. |
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Skunk Cabbage - Bright yellow spathes appear in spring followed by large leaves. |
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Water Purslane - Mats of creeping stems with purple leaves and tiny bell shaped flowers. |
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Bog Asphodel - Rigid fans of reddish green leaves with spiked star shaped yellow flowers. |
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Green Arrow Arum - Bright green arrow shaped leaves, narrow white flower and green berries. |
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Pickerel Weed - Smooth heart-shaped leaves and spikes of blue flowers in late summer. |
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Greater Spearwort - Long shoots with small heart-shaped leaves with yellow flowers. |
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Zebrinus - Bullrush with dark green stems striped with cream bands, spear-like flowers. |
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Water Figwort - Green edged leaves and greenish purple flowers on a shrub like plant. |
Other plants that would grow with lushness and vigor in or near a bog are; Ajuga, Goats Beard, Astilbe, Golden Sedge, Bugbane, Shell Flower, Crocosmia, Dropwort, Hosta, Japanese Iris, Lobelia, Creeping Jenny, Phlox and many of the ornamental grasses.