The day finally arrived for the great bog garden dig and the recent wet weather has certainly helped the boggy conditions!
The top soil had been delivered the previous day and was steaming rather impressively in the corner of the playground.
Despite the persistent rain, we were blessed to have a group of willing volunteers from staff to mums and dads, big sisters and cousins.
The day began with an introduction to what we hoped to achieve through the day and a brief health and safety talk.
Kate from BCEP, had already marked out the site of the bog garden and so our first task was to remove the turf from the area. This was piled up ready for use later to edge the bog garden.
Next job was to dig down roughly 30cm and remove the soil, discarding any large stones along the way.
By mid morning and with a steady stream of new helpers lending a hand, the bog area was dug out.
We gathered quite an audience during break time as the children were fascinated to watch the development of another exciting focal point in the playground.
We then moved on to constructing a trench around the perimeter of the bog garden in which the edge of the weed proof membrane and pond liner would be buried.
After laying the weed proof membrane came the highly enjoyable task of smoothing down the pond liner. It was at this point, the temptation to build a nice relaxing jacuzzi rather than a bog garden, was almost overwhelming!
By lunchtime we had filled in the trench around the bog garden and started to put a layer of topsoil over the pond liner.
At this point, we bid farewell to some of our super morning helpers, whilst the rest of us took a well earned break.
Our afternoon team was somewhat smaller, but thankfully we had made good progress across the morning and were still on schedule.
The main jobs for the afternoon were to back fill the hole with the original soil and topsoil and build up the lower edge of the bog garden to help retain the water.
Our trusty team soldiered on through the rain showers and by the end of the school day we were about done.
The bog garden will need a few weeks to settle and become boggy (which shouldn't be a problem if the rain continues!) before we can begin planting up with the children. Kate had some great suggestions for bog loving plants including water mint, flag irises and snake head fritillary.
