As I'm sure most experienced gardeners would say, there are times of joy and times of sadness, but one needs patience. I'm not the most experienced gardener, but I do enjoy it, and love the learning process.

My little kiddie pool garden, which I dug last October and populated in spring 09 gave me great joy in the early stages. I populated it with sarracenia purpurea and leucophylla, and some little drosera (adelae, capensis and common), even some small venus fly traps. Below are some pics I took. My chief disappointment was with my local nursery. In the fall when I started the project, they told me they had great local resources they could tap to get the plants I wanted. Well, when spring rolled around and I showed up with my list again, they back-pedaled and told me they couldn't. The little plants you see came from an internet supplier whom I wasn't thrilled with.

So, in went the plants. I'd purchased a rain barrel and redirected a downspout into the barrel, so I had plenty of rainwater to keep the bog wet if things in the northeast ever did get dry. Everything was in place.

Then the deer trampled the leucophylla. Some squirrels ripped out my purpurea (I blame the squirrels, but in truth I don't really know if they or another animal ripped them out). I couldn't find another source for purpurea, but ended up getting another leucophylla from of all places Lowe's. The drosera capensis eventually just turned black and croaked, but the other drosera kept growing very nicely. The venus fly trap, though always small, held up well, and even bagged herself a daddy long legs, which I tell you was one of the wierdest sights I've ever seen. Venus fly trap tightly shut with these long legs twitching away.

The rain barrel worked great. It holds 70 gallons and fills up in a jiffy. During the hot days of the summer I'd give the garden long drinks every day. The sarracenia grew but never looked like they were really thriving. The drosera looked great. Grasses would start to sprout and I'd pull them out, but if something unusual started growing, I'd leave it be, figuring it might be something interesting. Even got a little patch of sphagnum moss to start. I'm going to try to find more moss in the spring. I imagine the more the better as it should help hold moisture in.

Anyway, I get the impression I'm rambling here, so I'll just wind up with the report that last weekend my daughter and I gathered up a couple of sacks of white pine needles and completely covered the garden in preparation for winter. Good thing we did too, because a day or two later there was a hard frost.

Hope you all enjoy the pictures. I enjoy getting comments and suggestions, so fire away if you'd like. I'm pretty new to this so if you have questions, I'll do my best, but no promises.

Late April and kiddie pool bog garden is ready to populate.

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Internet ordered bog plants.

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Plants are in and we're off!

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Fast forward from April to October and here's the kiddie pool bog garden after a summer of growth.

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Closeup of a pretty little drosera

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Closeup of a very pretty though small sarracenia purpurea.

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Another view of the sun-dew

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Bog garden is mulched over with some white pine needles and ready for a long winter's nap. I'm going to do some research over the winter so I'm better prepared for kiddie pool bog garden year-two.

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