16 Bog Plants You Can Cultivate for Decoration

Bog plants are beautiful additions to almost any landscape, garden, or water feature. While bog plants can be an exotic look, you don’t have to purchase them from an expensive nursery.

With the right conditions, many bog garden plants can be cultivated for decoration right in your backyard. In this article, you can find the list of such bog plants and learn details about these plants easily.

So, let’s get started.

Various Types of Bog Plants

1. Japanese Sweet Flag

Japanese sweet flag aka Acorus gramineus ‘Ogon’ is a delightful bog plant that can be grown in wet areas in gardens, ponds, or even indoors. It makes an ideal addition to any pond or bog garden. With its whispers of spice and cinnamon, the scent of crushing its long leaves has become quite popular in Asia.

These are the types that will grow very well and add such a nice color to your garden especially in the summer season when they would grow in the full sun. What you need to do is to make sure that the soil is moist, so that the plant would stay moist in the roots, and won’t go through harsh and stressful circumstances. 

2. Cardinal Flower

The cardinal flower aka Lobelia cardinalis is an incredibly attractive bog plant that makes a bold statement in any garden. Native plants to North America, these perennial wildflowers produce tall, vibrant blooms in shades of deep red along thin stems and thick green foliage.

The lace shaped leaves of these beautiful flowers are ones that would often provide sheltered for snail and slugs, but these are the types of pests that are easy to be spotted, which means you can get rid of them very easily.

Moreover, the soil should be a rich one in humus, and remember that you can fertilize it before the growing season, as the plant would establish very well, and be productive in its beautiful flowers.

3. Siberian Iris

The Siberian iris is an attractive perennial bog plant that can be grown in a wide variety of climates. It features stunning, blue-purple flowers with bright yellow throats and long, arching leaves. 

Once established, it tolerates drought day by providing lacy foliage for up to eight months throughout spring, summer and autumn. They would begin to grow in spring, with the help of pollinators, and last till the cold gets really harsh. 

4. Queen of the Prairie

Queen of the prairies is a stunning, drought-tolerant bog plant native to North America that can prove an easy-to-care-for addition to any backyard space. They are a great choice because in the right conditions, these flowers are known to grow as tall as eight feet tall and spread almost three feet wide. 

Their brilliant pink plumes offer both a showy display and a delightful texture amongst their meadow peers. It requires plenty of humidity to do best, and you can also add some slow releasing fertilizer in the spring, when the flowers are still blossoming up. However, when the sun gets warmer and brighter, this is when they would start blooming and grow all through summer. 

5. Purple Loosestrife

Purple loosestrife is a species of flowering plant native to North America and Eurasia with purple-colored spikes of flowers. It thrives in moist conditions and can often be found in wetlands, bogs, ponds, roadsides, pastures, and ditches. 

This perennial plant is considered to be invasive in some parts of the world, which is why they wouldn’t encourage the growth. On the contrary to this belief, if you want to grow them and keep them properly controlled, what you can do is to prune them well, in autumn, and by spring when they are establishing, still, they wouldn’t face any big issues. 

6. Japanese Water Iris

The captivating Japanese water iris is a stunning aquatic perennial that can add a wide range of texture and color to any bog area. They are excellent for ornamental use and useful additions to any wet landscape, in addition, they would grow from 24 to 48 inches tall, and this is their significant characteristic. 

These plants grow in an upright, grass-like habit with deep green and slender strap-like leaves. If you wish to see them thrive, locate them in a place with full to partial shades of sun, and make sure that the soil is a well-draining type where water will not be stuck around the roots for a long period of time. 

7. Japanese Primrose

Japanese primrose is a low-maintenance bog plant that can be cultivated to create a stunning display of color and blooms in any garden because it has the ability to grow as big tall as 12 to 18 inches in its height. These showy plants often form eye-catching cascades over a rock or along water features. 

With its attractive silver foliage, this hardy perennial is great for adding texture and vivid color to the garden. But you should be mindful that these flowers would be prone to pest attacks, such as having aphids or mealybugs around them, on another note, you can be mindful and with the help of some insecticides you can get rid of them.

8. False Helleborine

False helleborine is a herbaceous, shade-loving bog plant native to much of Europe and Asia. As its name suggests, it often appears very similar in shape and color to the true hellebore species. 

With striking tall spikes of deep-green leaves tinted with purple, false helleborine can offer an interesting display. When you wish to invest in this plant to see its beautiful flowers and star shaped leaves thriving, place it under the full sun so that it thrives, and remember that the soil should be a fertile one, or an organic one that has well draining properties. Moreover, with these conditions, the plant would be able to last all summer long.

9. Gooseneck Loosestrife

Gooseneck loosestrife is an herbaceous perennial that grows in moist and swampy areas, such as bog gardens. This robust plant is suitable for overwintering, even if temperatures dip below freezing, and prefers partial to full shade locations. With proper care and maintenance, this versatile blossom will offer unmatched beauty.

10. False Spirea

False spirea is an ornamental deciduous shrub with stunning fern-like foliage and dense growth that is native to cool moist, damp habitats. It is a low-maintenance bog plant that can be successfully cultivated in sunny to partially shaded locations where it will remain hydrated and wet while still providing good drainage to the soil which would also help the roots to grow and to establish themselves in a strong way.

11. Arum Lily

The arum lily is an attractive bog plant with large glossy green foliage and bright white flowers that make it a popular choice among gardeners. These flowers with their arrow shaped leaves would grow in spring and would thrive so well in the times when they see full sunlight. 

It is native to North America but can be easily cultivated in many other parts of the world. The leaves stay evergreen throughout winter before they die back.

12. Bronze Leaf Rodgersia

Bronze Leaf Rodgersia is an excellent option for those looking to add a distinctively different look and feel to their landscape. This bog plant is ideal for both damp areas and drier sites with constantly moist soils, and this is how the plant would establish well and give you a prosperous result of beautiful flowers. Its leaves, which range from deep burgundy to coppery olive tones, provide striking foliage contrast.

13. Giant Rhubarb

Giant rhubarb is an attractive bog plant native to the wetlands of South America that can be easily cultivated in home gardens. 

It has large, glossy lobed leaves that can reach up to three feet long and a giant flower spike coated with bright yellow-green petals. But be careful as they can be infested with some snails and slugs, which is an easy notion to take care of with home remedies such as a beer trap. You should be careful though, since many plants look like Rhubarb and they can be poisonous!

14. Marsh Spurge

Marsh spurge is an attractive bog plant that can be easily cultivated at home. It forms a clump of gray-green stems and has small reddish-brown flowers, which you would start seeing in spring as they would last till summer.

Unlike other perennials, marsh spurge does not require special soil or fertilizer, and it will thrive in wet environments such as marshes, pond edges, and damp meadows.

15. Chinese Globeflower

Chinese globeflower is a low-maintenance, showy bog plant that can thrive in moist, shaded gardens with ample drainage. This perennial native to East and Southeast Asia boasts deep green foliage as tall as two feet in height.

Light yellow to cream-colored globular flowers emerge atop contrasting burgundy stems, they would begin to attract pollinators because of the rich nectar that they have.

16. Bulley’s Primrose

Bulley’s primrose is an evergreen perennial pitcher plant native to the mountains of western China and is fascinatingly adapted to life in boggy meadows. This unique species forms clumps of cushion-shaped basal rosettes that arise from red rhizomes.

The relatively short stem bears pleated, furry foliage and five-petaled, yellow flowers which are a great feature that you can add to your beautiful garden.

Conclusion

From now on, you will be able to choose the right kind of bog plants for your garden as you have gone through this post.

To summarize these plants, here’s what we covered:

• Japanese primrose and aurum lily are the only two plants on this list which do not thrive in summer.
• If you want to grow bog plants in the spring you can choose Siberian iris, Japanese water iris, etc.
• Aurum lily and gooseneck loosestrife can be grown in the winter season.
• Siberian iris and the two loosestrifes mentioned here can be grown in fall.

Let us know which of these bog plants you will choose based on their growing season.

• Author
• Recent Posts

Evergreen Seeds

If you are looking for help gardening you’ve come to the right place! We love gardening and we want to share this love with you. Join our dynamic garden community.

Latest posts by Evergreen Seeds (see all)

• 25 Kalanchoe Types and Colorful Varieties for Your Garden - October 3, 2023
• 17 Hawaiian Flowers That Grow and Thrive in the Hot Summer - October 2, 2023
• Watering a Poinsettia and How is it Done Correctly? - September 30, 2023