Bog Plants at the NC Botanical Garden

When we visited the NC Botanical Garden in June the bog garden was in full bloom.

There was lots of Plymouth Rose-Gentian, whose fragrance is as exquisite as its beauty.

And lots of Pitcher Plants. Pitcher Plants live in bogs that are very low in
nitrogen, and they have evolved to digest insects as their nitrogen source.

They have unusual-looking rounded flowers, and the plants themselves
come in so many different colors and patterns because they hybridize freely.

Insects lured by the promise of nectar find that they cannot crawl back
out and eventually fall into a liquid-filled cavity at the base of the plant.

These Common Grass Pink Orchids are exquisite too.

The Sundews are elegant in a surprising sort of way, and even have
beautiful little pink flowers covered in fuzzy down that are in bud
in the picture. Like the Pitcher Plants Sundews are carnivorous.

Whereas the Pitcher Plants utilize a "pitfall trap" to catch their prey, the fine sticky hairs on the stems of this Tracy's Sundew attract insects and then capture them, even physically curling around their prey, although at much slower speeds than a Venus Flytrap.

Venus Flytraps are native only to an area within a 100 mile radius of Wilmington, NC. Historically Pitcher Plants had a much wider range than that of Venus Flytraps, with the range of the Purple Pitcher Plant extending even to the mountains.

An artist's representation of some of what Pitcher Plants and Sundew Plants enjoy eating.

Looking for more vitamin C?

Those Orange Milkworts do look yummy.

Last but not least, Few-Flowered Milkweed. Besides liking wet
conditions, this is a much taller and more airy plant than Butterfly Weed.

The display almost makes you want to build raised peat beds and water them 3 times a day doesn't it? Perhaps a nice-sized pot or tub would be doable..