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Balcony marsh bed and mini-pond planning, instructions and tips
Conservation starts on the doorstep, and many dream of a garden pond, but only have a balcony or terrace. Swamp bed and mini oak provide an alternative for the small square. If necessary, one square meter, a mortar trough, water and plants are sufficient.
contents
- The ecological benefit
- Mortar trough or wine barrel
- Dig the tub into the ground
- planting
- Natural atmosphere
- Underwater or swamp?
- Mini pond or mini sump?
- Swamp bed is called bank edge zone
- Peat is no go
- tip
The ecological benefit
Native marsh plants such as loosestrife or riparian zone plants such as meadowsweet are excellent bee pastures; certain wild bees are even specialized in loosestrife. But butterflies and many other insects control the flowers as a source of food. Insects and birds use the water surface as a potion, in shallow places bathe the birds.
The loosestrife is an ideal plant for the swamp bed on the balcony, as it serves as an important food source for many insects. (Image: hjschneider / fotolia.com) Mortar trough or wine barrel
You can lavishly create a swamp bed with pond liner if you have enough soil to do so. However, these are simple but practical variants. You take a wine barrel, an old wooden tub, a discarded bath, laundry or mortar tub. The appearance is a matter of taste. Often there is such a utensil in the grandparents, in the attic or flea market.
If you do not have such a piece of junk at hand, a mortar trough is optimal. These are available in round or square, and they are also called mortar boxes. The sizes are between about 45 and 200 liters capacity - at least 90 liters should have the pond on the balcony or the terrace already.
Dig the tub into the ground
If you have a few square feet of floor space, be it in a yard or front yard, then dig a hole that is slightly larger than the tub, put the tub in, and plug the "air holes" on the four walls with earth. The remaining soil is used as a "bank of the wall". An approximately 5 cm high layer of soil you scoop on the bottom of the tub.
If you want to draw underwater plants, then this layer of earth is enough. Do you want swamp plants to be anchored in the soil? Then plant baskets that weigh several kilograms of river gravel are recommended, so you do not drift on the surface.
Then you can fix them with slate, natural stones, pieces of bark or branch cut on the shore. Put these offset over the corners, then everything looks more natural.
Now fill up the tub with water. If you have a rain barrel and the water does not rot in it, use the rainwater.
Depending on the taste and available space, for example, an old bathtub or zinc pan is good for a mini pond. (Image: Nico / fotolia.com) planting
For the planting inside the "Miniteich" applies: Less is more. Although it looks barren at first, and many would like to see their house swamp immediately as a jungle with frog, but the plants proliferate faster than most think: a single marsh sword lily in two years loosely fills the entire tub so that no more water see is.
Natural atmosphere
Possible plants are: marsh marigold, the bright red blooming loosestrife, meadowsweet, lizard tail, marsh sword lilies or frog spoon. To cover the artificial character, you can locate around the tub around garden plants: chives, stork beak or lady's mantle are very suitable in the shade or partial shade especially diverse ferns. When planting grasses, make sure they grow horstly, otherwise they will grow into the water, which can also be an interesting effect.
Do you want an open water surface? Then you can not plant anything and wait for the waters to develop.
Underwater or swamp?
Do you prefer a pond atmosphere and less a swamp bed? Then you can settle plants that float on the water and pull their nutrients out of the water, especially the duckweed. It does not make any special demands, and if it stretches too much, you can simply fish it out with a landing net.
If you prefer swamp plants that spread like irises or loosestrife, there is no room for underwater plants. In order to plant underwater plants, it is advisable to plant around the tub, but not to introduce marsh plants into the tub itself, or if so, then only in a plant pot. Suitable underwater plants are crab claws, water plague or millipedes.
Suitable underwater plants are, for example, crab claw or waterweed. (Image: Reiner P./fotolia.com) Do you keep the environment of the tub moist, for example, by temporarily draining the water? Then it is suitable as a marginal planting also miniature ear plugs.
Mini pond or mini sump?
However, if you do not even have a balcony, but only a window sill, you will find various rectangular porcelain, ceramic and terracotta bowls as well as flower boxes specially designed for the windowsill. Here, however, you have to glue the drainage holes with silicone.
They fill up with water, preferably rainwater, and make sure that the box is not under a roof so that new rainwater can enter. They pour regularly and abundantly. If the tub dries out in midsummer, that's no problem. Exactly what happens in a swamp - amphibians are even dependent on it, because when drying out, the fish and dragonfly larvae that eat the tadpoles die.
You can opt for a marsh or pond box. Swamp plants want a soil that is completely saturated with water, but without flooding the surface with water. In nature, these are the siltation zones of lake or sinks that are fed with groundwater. Dominant are upholstery plants or horst-forming perennials.
Ideal is a rain barrel, which has a drain and can constantly lead water into the bed with a hose. You can also water a box regularly with the watering can. As long as you see water, everything is fine. If not, check the floor. If it is wet, everything is still paletted, it will be problematic only when the whole bed is drying out over a long time.
Swamp bed is called bank edge zone
In such a swamp bed, the best plants are those that inhabit the riparian zone in nature. These include the Fieberklee and the Günsel, the checkerboard and lily flower, the pennywort, the marsh fern and the marsh primrose, the marsh gladiolus or the marsh horsetail.
Swamp plants, such as the fever clover, require a soil that is completely saturated with water. (Image: finsrfun / fotolia.com) Do you want to help the endangered bees and other insects? Water-borne is an excellent bee pasture. He has little claims except damp soil and is up to 140 cm high. Meadowsweet is also used as food for the bees, is also natural aspirin, the flowers and leaves can be processed into a sweet tea, and the plants exude the smell of spring honey.
To create a swamp bed, the best thing would be to get a layer of real swamp horses. But it can also be done differently: they take compost earth or potting soil, mix 10% sand with three handfuls of mulching leaves. The humus in real swamps consists of decaying plant remains.
Peat is no go
Do not use peat natural gardener! Peat forms in the moor, and that's where it belongs. Moors are among the most threatened habitats in Germany at all, and the wilderness on the balcony should give wild and wild plants a chance and not destroy them.
tip
Is your terrace on a slope? Do you have a "problem" in the front yard, where the water does not drain? Perfect? Use this soil compaction and use marsh plants. That's all you need to do.
A marsh bed is perfect for changing weather conditions with heavy rainfall and dry spells. Swamp plants can readily survive dry seasons and at the same time love wetness, which kills more sensitive plants. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)
More information:
https://www.teichpflanzen-teichbau.com/sumpfbeet/
http://phlora.de/sumpfbeet-anlegen-unsere-antwort-auf-den-klimawandel/