Swamp gardens are something very different,

but these gardens are the easiest of all to establish!

A hole is dug into the ground, or an existing hollow can be utilised. Sometimes a stump may need to removed, and the hole left behind can be used. If you are running grey water into a sullage pit, that is a perfect place for a swamp garden, as some sedges and rushes can remove impurities and pollutants such as detergents from the water.

Line the hole with a several layers of newspaper, or some old carpet, or similar padding. This is to ensure that stones or sticks in the ground do not puncture the plastic liner. Put a couple of layers of heavy duty black plastic on the padding.

After a couple of years you may find that roots or insects have punctured the plastic. That doesn't matter, because by then, as in nature, plant roots will have built up an almost impermeable layer over the plastic, and leaks will be negligible. Shovel some soil around the edges, to hold the plastic down, and some pieces of bush logs if you can find some.

*If you are handy with a hammer and some nails, you can get plans for all sorts of garden furniture here, including a garden bridge!* Click here for garden decor plans!

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If you wish, at this stage you can include a small pond. Cut the bottom out of a shallow dish about the same depth as your swamp garden. Place in the plastic-lined hole. Now shovel some more soil, and some compost or manure, into the hole, leaving the basin empty. The empty basin becomes a pond, when the swamp garden is filled. You can also use an old kitchen sink or any other suitable container. Another way of creating a pond as well, is to place a permeable barrier, such as rocks, across part of the swamp. This way you will have both a swamp and a pond.

It is also possible to dig two holes close together, and overlap the plastic liner into both holes. This provides both a pond and a swamp garden. Put the hose into the plastic lined hole and soak until water runs over the edge. While the swamp garden is filling with water, sprinkle some mulch and leaves over the garden, and around the perimeter.

*Australian readers can buy traditional fruit and vegetable seeds online from* Eden Seeds, In the wet swamp garden you have created, plant native sedges, rushes, and wet soil plants, such as frogmouth, bacopa, and ferns. If you have incorporated a pond into part of the swamp garden, put in free floating aquatic plants such as yellow bladderwort, ferny azolla, and snowflake.

Outside the plastic liner, you can plant moisture loving plants like lomandras, ferns, and dianella. Further out, plant teatrees, calistimons, palms, and other plants and shrubs that like moisture, but don't like being too wet.

If you have utilised a grey water sullage pit, you will need to plant heavy feeders, sedges and rushes such as Lepironia, Eleocharis sphacelata, and E. acuta, Typha (cumbungi) and similar plants. These plants are now being used to detoxify old mining sites.

Another idea is to turn your swamp garden into an edible plant garden. There are many edible plants that love to grow in very wet conditions. Some of these are you-yang, Vietnamese mint, watercress, water chestnuts (jicama), and there are many others. You may want to give that idea some thought.

You will find that small birds and frogs will love your swamp garden, and will breed there. Birds like teh seed heads on most reeds and rushes. A few clumping rushes will provid them with a nesting site or two.

Frogs eat insects that would prey on your garden plants. Apart from looking natural and attractive, having a swamp garden serves two other purposes, it provides a habitat for frogs, who in turn will help you keep pest insects out of your garden!

Happy swamp gardening, Patrick

ps. If you plant agreen tree in your heart, a singing bird may come!