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How to Plant a Bog Garden with Carnivorous Plants

© Diana Pederson

Carnivorous plants can thrive in a simple bog garden in a terrarium setting.

How to Plant a Bog Garden

Assemble the following:

• 5-10 gallon fish aquarium or some other clear glass or plastic terrarium
• long-fibered spaghum moss, from nurseries or garden centers, (not the type that has been shredded into tiny pieces)
• several carnivorous plants

Before buying the plants, look carefully to be sure the spaghum moss has not dried out. If it has, chances are the plant is no longer alive. Butterworts have colorful flowers; Pinguicula vulgaris is the variety commonly sold. Sundews, Drosera species, are very delicate-looking plants. Pitcher plants, Sarracenia purpurea, look like pitchers.

Soak the dry spaghum moss in a pail of warm water, then squeeze it out until it feels damp, but does not drip. Place a 3-4" layer into your terrarium. The moss can slope from the back towards the front if desired. 

The carnivorous plants most likely came in a plastic pot filled with moist spaghum moss and covered with a clear plastic top. Note that these plants are not rooted in soil and will die if planted in it. Plant them by making an opening in the moss the size of the root ball. Then, gently take the plant out of the pot and place it in your hole. Bring the spaghum moss up over the root ball. Make sure the plant rests on top of the moss layers, and is not sunk into it.

Caring for the Bog Garden

 Keep the spaghum moss damp at all times. Some growers recommend keeping 1/4" of water in the terrarium. If the plant's roots aren't resting in water it will suffocate from lack of oxygen and die. Fertilizing these plants is not recommended because they are easily killed by the salt in fertilizer.

Plants can be fed from time to time with ants and other tiny insects to see the process of the plant "eating" its meal. However, these plants can exist indefinitely without being fed.

Place your bog garden in a bright window without direct sun. Remember that the sun shining through the glass wall of a terrarium can cook your plants on a hot day. Another option is to grow them under lights.

 

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