Ella, the purpose of a bog garden/filter is to have some place where nutrients in the water can settle, and to have plants that use those nutrients as fertilizer.

That's a great idea for people that have a lot of fish in their pond that would eat or uproot or otherwise mess up the plants so they can't establish plants in the pond.

If you don't have too many fish in your pond, grow the plants in the pond, you don't need to create a separate place to grow the plants.

I don't like bog gardens at all.
It's one more thing I have to take care of, requires a pump and plumbing that has to be maintained and can break, and bog gardens can go bad too. If they do, all that mess is pumped back into the pond.

Almost all submerged aquatic plants inhibit algae. If they didn't, they would be covered in algae themselves and die. I use hornwort in my pond because it does that very well, and also is easy for me to grow.

If I were you, I would work on having a balanced pond and not try to use something like a bog garden that can also break.

Corrie

Ella,
I am not crazy about using a pond for swimming. First I question how save it is. If you want to swim in your pool keep it as a swimming pool. That being said let me give you a link to a site on bog filtration. http://www.bogfiltration.com/.
Mike

Zone 4 Tucson, AZ Sonoran Desert, 2500' elevation
Corrie, I REALLY like your thinking. I REALLY want to do that, I'm somewhat afraid of it. I don't want to end up with a pond full of a bulging, heaving, mass of green monster, either. How often do you need to remove baskets full of it, and what do you do with it?
And, where is the beauty of submerged, or even floating non blooming plants? I might as well fill it in with dirt. Help me out here.
Okay, I've read about hornwort, I'll get some. That may be the first plant I put into the pool. No duckweed, though.
My pool is too deep (3 to 8 feet) for even lilies, which, as I said, I thought were floaters, not rooted in dirt.
What can I use instead of, that hang their roots just in the water?
And why can't I do that with water lilys? These expensive floating gardens support land plants without dirt, in the ponds, and their bare roots are sucking up water...

I DO know I can't do everything at once, or even much at once. If I start out with hornwort to keep it clean, how much work is there to controlling that stuff? I don't want to solvle one problem and make others.

And doesn't that stuff get caught in the filter? Don't you have to keep the water moving, at least some movement? I don't want stagnant, stinky polluted nasty water.

Mike, No, I do not PLAN to use it for swimming, but I might, so I will test it at times. And if it's clean enough, might have dogs in it on occassion.
I may put some edible fish in it. Doesn't the water need movement for them? Do I need mosquito eaters? And then bigger fish to help control them? Or, are they edible? Deep fried and chocolate covered?

Ella

Thanks for your responses.

Ella, it's a perfect time for you to be thinking and planing this.

I clean the pond out once a year, every spring. I take about 1/2 the water out when I vacuum it. Then the water level is low enough that I can get to all the water lilies.
I use a laundry basket to get the hornwort out. Fill it up and dump it in the garden. I take about 3/4ths of it out every spring.

The beauty is in the water lilies.

I don't use any filters or pumps, that would defeat the purpose. Like I told you, I just have one small air pump.

Corrie

There is a Bog forum on Gardenweb although I admit I haven't gone there in a long while since Fred is no longer posting there. Fred got fed up with some of the other posters who did things incorrectly and then complained when things didn't go as they expected or criticized his methods. He went to a site where you have to pay membership.

There was also a post both on this forum and bogs about a type of bog filter specifically for ponds that was pretty good. I'll see if I can locate them for you but it has been quite some time.

Here is a link that might be useful: Freds bogs