Hi Bugman,

With money, time, and tools no object, here is a solution.

Dig out a pond about 16 inches deep, use either a plastic rigid preformed pond kit or a plastic fabric liner. Fill with either long fiber sphagnum moss, or half sphagnum plus half sand. Fill with rain water or water low in TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) like distilled water or RO (Reverse Osmosis) water.

Next, build a frame over your bog and top the frame with shade cloth. Your frame could be 8 inches over the top of the bog or 8 feet. The object of the frame is to provide shade, but not get in the way of maintenance. Also, the shade cloth could be 40%, 60%, or 80% shade. Some early morning sun should be good for your plants. But it should get some shade for the blazing noon time sun.

Most bog plants require nutrient poor environments. Your typical tap water might be too high in TDS and nutriets to be used. That's why I recommend rain, distilled, or ro water. But only you know how good your tap water is.

I have the opposite problem here in the frozen tundra of Wisconsin. Will my ground ever become unfrozen enough for me to dig in it. Good grief, I still have 20 inches of snow in my backyard. Would you like some of my snow to melt for watering your bog :-)

Tom

Texas heat should not be a huge problem for plants that are native to the southeastern US (e.g. most Sarracenias, Dionaea muscipula, some pinguiculas and droseras. I would not use shade cloth, particularly if you are growing tall Sarracenias. Depending on where you are in Texas, lack of humidity might be more of an issue.

There is no way to predict how often you will need to water. That depends on the size of the bog, the density of the planting, and the frequency of rain. Put a vertical pipe on the bog, so that you can measure the water level with a dipstick. Then, water as necessary.

Hey Bugman, Keeping it wet is going to be your #1 concern for sure. I live in Fort Worth and have toyed with the idea. There is someone named Greg on this forum (can't remember his posting name)that lives in East Texas and has a seepage system. He has a web group on Yahoo called Backyard Bogs I can't paste the link, GWF won't let me.

Let us all know how it works out.

Hey there bugman. Coming to you from Carthage Texas. The system I have set up over here uses the condensation from the air conditioning system. I collect the water in a bucket that is sunk into the ground with a sump pump in it. The pump moves the water to another 5 gallon bucket suspended above the bog with a hose ran out of the bottom. This works pretty well. Also, if you are in West Texas I recommend purchasing the ebook from cobraplant.com. There is a section in there about growing CPs in the dessert. Quite interesting. http://www.cobraplant.com/cmd.php?af=385276

I am a college student so I can't build it at A&M but I am trying to build it at my parents house which is in Temple, in between Austin and Waco, and we get rain but I'm not sure if its enough, especially in july and august when the temperatures can get 100 or a few degrees above. I might just do the movable bogs and use a barrel and plant one I can move whenever I want. I'm not doing this until the summer anyway because I am a full time student so I have plenty of time to decide but thanks for the suggestions:)