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We made it to the pond plant selection for the bog filter, and I wanna take you through
the exact plants that we picked out for, for our particular patio pond.
Because there's literally hundreds of varieties of plants to choose from, and
sometimes people get caught up in, maybe they put too many different varieties.
I really only have about four species of plants that we're gonna be dealing with
not including our water lily.
So we'll have only four in here but I really want them to count.
And that's why I'm gonna walk you step by step through what we're doing.
Now we wanna create a terracing effect because we're against a wall.
So back against the, the back part of the, the bog filter,
I wanna plant some tall stuff.
So I picked this colocasia.
It's a harlequin, harlequin elephant ear and
it has this really interesting stock with a lot of irrigation in it.
So I'll put this towards the back it'll get pretty tall and
has a nice big elephant ear that'll pop up on it.
Then I selected, a red stem saggitaria.
[SOUND] Now, it's a little bit shorter, so I'm starting to create the, the levels that,
the change of levels.
[SOUND] And, I know these aren't cherry picked plants but
we're gonna clean them up and make them look nice.
This guy has a, a really nice red stem and it has a nice broad leaf.
Really green.
And so the red mixing in with this variegated stalk on the,
the harlequin is gonna look really nice.
[SOUND] So there's the, the first set of levels.
Now, once I get these established I wanna pop this, this guy right in front.
This is, a sweet flag.
So I'll pop this right in front of here.
So I got this green and kind of a yellowish white.
Popping up next to this, broad leaf like, so.
And then I'll drop this guy right in front and this is a pennywort.
And this is a different layer.
And this guy is really probably one of the most key elements to our bog filter because
it's super invasive it grows super super fast.
And that's what you're looking for in a bog plant.
This is probably gonna be our most effective plant in, in, the whole filter.
These guys are just going to be for glamour.
[SOUND] They're just gonna make look really pretty and
this guy's going to grow all in between and do a lot of the filtering capacities.
So I'm gonna start to clean these guys up so we can get them placed into the bog.
This is gonna take a few minutes.
[SOUND] And as I said, when I went to the nursery.
[SOUND] I was really picking specifics.
[SOUND] I didn't just go for the plants that looked the best per se because I know this
plant is gonna look amazing real quick.
[SOUND] Now, if you'll see, right now it's, it's just the beginning of September,
Southern California.
We still have hundred degree weather, most of the day pretty brutal heat and
then it drops a little bit in temperature in the evening maybe down into the 80s.
And we'll have some pretty good weather here for the next month to six weeks.
So what I'm gonna do is [SOUND] I'm probably just get rid if this guy.
Cuz he doesn't look so nice, right?
[SOUND] And I'm just get down to the basics in here.
[SOUND] And when we finish planting the bog [SOUND] It's gonna look pretty lean, but
you're gonna be surprised at how fast it fills in.
[SOUND] So, there's our first guy here.
[SOUND] Probably what I'll do here,
I still want the [SOUND] The filter to look kind of full when I'm done.
When you're dealing with a plant that comes to a point and the tips
are browning a little, I'll just come through and kind of give it a cut like that.
[SOUND] That one doesnt look so bad.
[SOUND] I'll come through and cut off all the brown stuff.
[SOUND] Pennywort.
I have a lot of clients that really hate this plant, and
I'll tell you why because it can be super invasive.
It has a runner, and I don't see any runners coming off this guy yet.
This guy was looking pretty homely when we picked it up.
But I know it's gonna rebound really quick.
What happens is that it'll, it'll start in the pond and start a runner.
And it'll get between rocks and sometimes it'll run out of the pond,
get into the grass, and then you have a beautiful grass with pennywort mixed in.
And even when you mow it down flat,
you get these little tiny guys popping up all over your lawn.
So, it can get out of hand but that's kind of what we want it to do.
That's its job in a bog filter.
Yeah, you can see these roots that I popped out but
that those roots kind of just go everywhere.
And as I said, we're looking that, we're looking for
that in the bog filter because when it's growing rapidly like that it's
sucking up all the nutrients and we have it in a, in a very well controlled environment.
So, I am going to encourage this plant to get crazy in there and then we'll just manage it.
It'll keep the water crystal clear for us.
[SOUND] Something interesting to know about these
pond plants.
You know, this one, like I said, looks homely but it was the only specimen that they had
for me and I use the word specimen lightly on this particular guy.
But you know, when you have plants like this, it's gonna try and, and rebound this plant.
This, this leaf right here this, this particular plant's gonna put a lot of
energy into making the, the stuff that doesn't look so good better.
So if we get rid of all the stuff that looks terrible, then it uses,
focuses all its energy on new stuff.
So I'm just gonna hack this guy way back and we'll let the roots regenerate.
No everything new.
[SOUND]
Look at how amazing this stalk is,
it's just gorgeous.
I think that's gonna be a real neat, interesting piece of this little bog filter.
[SOUND] This is the harlequin colacasia.
[SOUND] Here's a new one I haven't talked about,
on the table I should say.
It's a Black Stem.
[SOUND] Black stem colocasia.
And, I think it's quite stunning.
We'll clean this up, and, it'll look really fabulous next to.
[SOUND] You know when these stalks come together like this, and
they intermix they're gonna look outstanding.
And the interesting thing about this Tea Cup is if you look at the top of the leaf.
It, it really spoons up and when it rains it holds water in a very interesting fashion.
So that's why it gets the name Tea Cup cuz it just pops up in the air like that.
The Harlequin has these modeled leaves and
it's flat and and it's not shiny like the Tea Cup.
So each, each leaf creates different modeling.
So that's gonna be real brilliant as well.
If you'll notice these pink, little balls here those are actually snail eggs.
I, I could be mistaken I'm pretty sure those are the apple snails.
There's a couple varieties of snails that I'm not super familiar with, but,
this is an apple snail and the snail comes out of the water, lays a big patch of eggs.
The patch of eggs is literally about as big as that circle right here,
typically, and it looks beautiful, looks like a piece of candy.
And then the eggs hatch and the, the snails get back down into the pond.
Sometimes they can be bothersome on your aquatic plants.
And since we have copper spouts on this particular pond, I don't think they're gonna
do much harm, cuz the copper's not good for snails.
[SOUND] Here's another new one to
the table haven't talked about this one yet.
This is another type of elephant ear I mean,
elephant ear's kind of the common name that everyone calls them by.
Colocasia is more of a scientific name but this is the Imperial Taro, and
I wanna point out just how amazing this leaf looks.
It gets a model look as well, and it has a black and green,
this, this small one is really typical, how it most of the leaves will look.
When, when the young leaves are coming out sometimes they'll break up a little bit.
You'll see a lot of variation in the, in the color, but
we get some interesting black in there.
[SOUND] There was a mistake right there.
Look, see this?
This is where the new leaf is coming out.
It's not a big deal here, but I just kinda wanna show you how the, the,
the main leaf, and I cut it, cuz it was kinda looking homely.
The main leaf breaks away and
then the new leaf comes up through the base of it so I cut it a little too deep.
Had I seen that earlier, I probably would've cut it like this and
left the new stalk coming up.
So you can see where I, where I cut it right there.
But I'm not gonna fret over it.
Here's an example right here.
See this?
This is the, the main stalk, and it still looks good, so I'm not gonna cut it, but
you have the new growth coming out of it, so it's, it's a really interesting plant.
I enjoy it, quite a lot. Okay.
[SOUND] So, I got those cleaned up.
The last plant I wanna show you is this.
I had to really scrounge to find this, and it's a little homely looking, but
this is watercress.
Now, the reason this plant is important to me because it's a winter plant.
Now we're in September it's still a hundred degrees in the daytime, drops to 80.
By the end of September, we're probably gonna be having still some high temperature days,
but we might drop into the 60s in the evening time.
And a lot of the plants will start to, to go and hibernate.
So, this plant is gonna start to flourish when that starts to happen, so
if some of the other plants start to drop down a little bit,
this plant will kick in and start doing real well.
This plant, even if I get a freeze for the evening, this plant will probably recuperate
real quick and still be in a great active plant inside our bog filter.
So, let me get these positioned in, in the bog filter now [SOUND] And
we'll display them and make them look nice.
Let me tell you about this water lily we picked out.
This is a tropical water lily and quite frankly, it's a bit outrageous.
It's a really big, beautiful tropical lily.
And it could probably get around six or eight feet in diameter.
It's really big, so why I'm I choosing it for this small pond?
Well, because we can it's gonna be fun.
When you have a giant lily.
When I pulled this out, this was about a six foot diameter when I pulled it out.
And you can see there's still a lot of bad, bad leaves on here.
So, in this particular pond, we're just gonna,
we're gonna cut off all the leaves that are questionable.
Now, this would still look beautiful in a very large pond.
It's just starting to, to show signs of yellowing but,
in this particular pond, we're just gonna cut it as it starts to grow.
[SOUND] Because we have a small pond and we want some exotic stuff.
This is called foxfire.
See this will look gorgeous in the pond kinda like in the
fall when leaves start to change color you'd probably leave this a little bit longer.
Yeah.
Gorgeous.
[SOUND] And let me find, let me find, a flower to talk to you about.
This guy was actually, this is probably one of the last days,
I doubt this will open tomorrow but this bloom is just outstanding.
Yeah, so this one would not have opened tomorrow.
You can see it's starting to, to fall apart on the inside already but
if you look at the color, it's just this beautiful purple and
it's actually quite fragrant you can smell it from about four or five feet away.
So I chose this, this water lily for this pond a because it's outrageous, and
my client's gonna love it, and b, it has beautiful, beautiful variegations,
so when you walk out to the pond, you're just gonna see this gorgeous look.
The flowers pop off the top of the pond about, you know,
almost 12 inches six to eight inches, it'll pop off the, let me show you.
This flower was sticking up out of the water about 12 inches and then it opened up.
Let's see how this one looks I'm gonna cut this off anyways.
Yeah, this one was expired.
You can see it wouldn't have opened tomorrow.
But when i saw this this morning and I picked it out, it was blooming so
this one will bloom tomorrow.
This is a great one, so I'm not gonna cut that off.
But before I do anymore cutting, I'm going to fill the bottom pond with water and
then I'm gonna place it in there and then I'll start to cut off all the dead stuff and
I'll get these big guys floating because I don't want them to break on their own weight.
If you look closely on the bottom of this guy, the veins on the bottoms of these guys
they're quite thick, so they can support a lot of weight, interestingly.
One, one interesting thing about tropicals.
Tropicals are gonna bloom a little bit longer in the season.
There's another reason why I'm picking the tropical for
the particular pond we're on right now.
We're in September, the hardys just by clockwork are gonna start to tailor off and
they're gonna start slow in production.
And they're going to start to shrink back.
And the tropical's extending, it wants to get as much as it can out of it's lifespan,
especially if it goes into winter time, it's gonna want to start to drop.
And we're gonna get more duration of water lilies before it gets
cold by adding this plant to it.
So I'm going to get this guy in the water right now before I do any more cutting.
[SOUND]
I might have one too many plants.
I might just keep this one out.
[SOUND] See by doing this,
I can figure out if I like how the, everything's going to match up.
See that color change right there, that's gonna look great.
This is gonna be back dropping this, this will all be low across the front.
I'm sneaking in my cold water plant here at the very end.
[SOUND] And just let it kind of hang tight until it closes over.
So the next step is for us to pull these out probably one at a time,
and I'm gonna clean off all the dirt off of each of the root systems.
And then I'll set it in there back how I have them and
then I begin to plant them in, in amongst the pea gravel.
If you have any questions about what we've done so far or
if you have questions about the particular plants we're using or plants you wanna use.
[MUSIC] Leave your questions in the comments section.
We'll get to them as soon as we possibly can.
I'm Eric Triplett The Pond Digger.
Thanks for watching.
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