Yellow flowers for my new bog garden

 For the section of my bog garden around the newt tank, I decided on yellow as the dominant theme, believing that the newts would relish a glowing vista on emerging from their winter hotel just across the path. Two shades of the same colour would be subtle and yet striking.

Firstly I went for marsh marigolds.

The other common name for this gem is Kingcup and it is a perennial herbaceous plant of the buttercup family, blossoming mostly between April and August. It will grow up to 31 inches high, die down in winter with buds near the surface of marshy soil in order to burst forth again in Spring. There are several stems bearing yellow wonders of about 1-2 inches in diameter.

Alongside them, I decided on Globe flowers, which will add a little variation for my discerning newts and the insects that will be allured to my back garden.

This is a herbaceous perennial with flowers that can tinge towards orange or even lilac. The name refers to the petals which curve over at the top forming a sphere. It grows up to 24" inches in height and the globes are up to 1.5 " across, enclosing a large number of stamens. I will train my visiting bees to probe these during the propitious months of June to August.

When I dream about my re-awakened back garden on these autumn nights, it is these sun replicas that float across my mind, radiant and optimistic.

Mud, mud, glorious mud

 Having subdued Doc Barbara (not an easy task) I gave the sensible part of my mind over to mud. One way of setting up the bog garden would be to lay aquatic soil all over the base of the ex-pond and put the plants directly into it. I found this a somewhat scary idea: what if some got out of hand and took over; what if some died and couldn't be pulled out? Finally I decided to leave a layer of mud at the bottom but use plastic pots with holes in the base for the plants which would suck moisture up. Here is an aesthetically pleasing portrait of a pot. 

The one that got away

I had ordered 60 litres of aquatic soil which appeared on my doorstep in 3 heavy bags. These I loaded onto an old shopping trolley and lugged them into the back garden before going to my amazing bargain shop for the pots which I brought home on my trusty rollator.
My inner hippopotamus was then released as I spent two happy days sloshing the wetted soil into containers and then into the pots. Wonderful wallowing before going into the hollow.

Before the ordeal.

 Then a thin layer of washed gravel.

I will spare you an epic account of my paddling in mud to get them in place but it involved wellies, heart-rending groans, filthy trousers, extreme childish delight and much smug satisfaction. Let's leave it there on the cliff-hanger: what else is in the pots? Is there anything that will actually grow?