So I already made one container a few months ago that you can see in the background of my photo and I've posted updates on recently. I got a bunch of Sarracenia as a gift but nowhere to put it so I had to make a second container so I did a few things different.
Photo 1: How it looks right now.
Photo 2: New Kids picture.
Photo 3: I drilled a 1" hole for a bulkhead fitting with a plug. Rationale being that I mainly want to drain my bog be moist but not water logged in the winter, so I'm just going to leave the plug off during the winter to let water flow out when it rains and when snow melt. Also letting all the water out make this container lighter for me to move I get a polar vortex putting temps in the 10s. I also can use the drain to flush out my bog, cycle out stagnant water and decrease the amount of funky aerobic bacteria going on similar to water cycling in a real natural bog. Its not a really an issue with my other large container bog but I do smell the funk on my smaller 5 gallon bog planter I keep water logged below the soil and I'm assuming the larger container bog has that smell too but the smell is locked deeper below the soil. I'll probably leave the plug open during hurricanes and heavy storms to get an easy and freebie water change.
Photo 4: In my first bog I put 4 inches of gravel on the bottom to be a sort of water reservoir so it's VERY heavy ontop of the water being stuck inside, its around ~400lbs fully watered. This new one I wanted to keep below 150lbs when fully wet and and down below 100lb when drained out. I forgot to take a picture of it but I put dried sphagnum moss against the bulkhead hole to act as a mesh, I dont really care if it decays, gets slimy, etc I just needed it there to keep the gravel in. I mounded a few shovel scoops of gravel to push the sphagnum against the drain hole and to act as a coarse material to promote drainage. I put a thick layer of mini pine bark nuggets (This is extra material i had left over I wanted to use up, i also read up since its pine bark it acts like an acidifier plus woody materials rob soils of nutrient when it breaks down so a win-win-win for me.) over this gravel then washed sand over it to fill in gaps. (Also left over cactus materials) You 1000% can just put a plastic mesh behind the drain to keep it unclogged and draining but I have a TON of random garden materials from Cactus and Citrus projects I did and I wanted to use up those materials.
Photo 5: Spicy take and putting my money were my mouth is. I made a blend of 50% Peat Moss, 22.5% Washed Sand and 22.5% MIRACLE GROW Perlite. Here the math I did behind the amount of fertilizer in the perlite.
A bag of MG perlite has an NPK of 0.07-0.07-0.07 and its a 790g bag so it contains 0.55g of each N, P and K, for a total of 1.65g of fertilizer in the whole bag. At the ratio I mixed it in 2 part peat moss: 1 part sand: 1 part Miracle Gro Perlite, that's 0.825g (1/7th of a teaspoon) fertilizer in 1560g (3.4lb) of soil mixture. I did rinse the perlite once though so the amount of fertilizer is even less if not negligible. I'm doing this to show you can use MG perlite and it's not some boogeyman material as long as you prepare for it. I already did this on my first container bog months ago, I didnt rinse it and my plants been thriving (it also doesn't have a drain so I can't flush it like I can this container) If it does show signs of harming my plants in this container for some reason I have a big ole drain I can flush my container easily with and update with an embarrassing retraction.
I topped the last 4 inches of the container with 100% peat moss because the perlite looks ugly. When the peat settles more I'll cover it with sand or moss.
Photo 6: How it looks empty and being hydrated with water from my rain barrel.
Photo 7: Water freely draining out of the drain, the sphagnum moss, sand and gravel is allowing water to filter out the sediment and let just water flow out the bottom of the container.
Photo 8: Group photo right out the mailbox.
Photo 9: Container right after planting.
Currently the pot weighs around 200lb when its fully watered. I'm probably going to move my little tissue culture Venus Fly Traps in this pot and my 6x S. Catesbaei.
by Justryan95
2 Comments
Really like the idea of the plug. Hoping I can successfully add one to my existing big without a disaster lol
you’re already doing it a million times better than me but for what it’s worth, i used the mg perlite and peat before learning its effects and it about killed my flytrap. i’d like to say it was dying back because of shock from repot but the second i got it out of there it shot up multiple new traps and stopped browning on the one surviving one
that also wasn’t rinsed and wasn’t a big ass pot like this, though, so