The way our house is laid out, we have an eavestrough and our sump pump pouring into the strip between our house and the south-east neighbour's. This strip of land gets incredibly swampy and, really, annoying to step on. It makes an irritating squish sound and just feels icky. So I decided to turn it into a swampy little butterfly-garden-in-progress. From not on, this spot will be known as "Swampy", and you can check the labels for all posts about Swampy.
I found the longest downspout hose we owned and stuck it to the far eavestrough. Then I got the second-longest and stuck it onto the sump pump pipe.
Both pipes still couldn't reach the site I wanted. So I took a broken piece of tile, stuck a rock under it to make a slope and put that under the the two hoses. At least the water would be a bit more directed.
Then came the horrible task of digging wet clay. In hindsight, I probably should not have done this at noon. Oh well. I dug out an L-shaped trench.
Here are the plants I planned to have in the little swamp. From left to right: a Rudbeckia, Irish moss and swamp milkweed.
Info for the Rudbeckia:
I decided to add some Cosmos, too. For kicks. I was pretty dehydrated by then and probably didn't think it through... Cosmos prefer drier soil. I'll dig them out some other day.
Argh. I'll deal with the sod another day. Too tired today, and I work tomorrow morning. This is a work in progress, and won't be terribly beautiful for a while yet.
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