Plants for very wet soul

[emsmum79]

Hello all, hoping for some help. Can anyone recommend a plant for a very wet border? This part of our garden is constantly boggy. Bamboo was a suggestion from family, but websites are giving conflicting info about whether it survives in wet soil.
Something available to buy online gets bonus points...!

Soil! Damn autocorrect. Although my soul is feeling a touch boggy just now...

I've got a damp border. Things which do well in it include dogwoods, hydrangea, purple loosestrife, candelabra primroses, astilbes, ferns.

Astilbe will tolerate poorly drained/clay soil, in a north facing garden. As will many daffodils.

Oh and irises (not the bearded sort)

www.crocus.co.uk/plants/_/andromeda-polifolia-compacta/classid.2000037071/

Pulmonaria, any kind of ornamental willow.

Willow is good, the cornus group love wet and come in many different varieties as do laurels. Polygonums, hostas are great too. If you can manage a tree look for a willow (grafted rootstock if you have a small garden) or a variety of silver birch. Leaves with a wide surface area help to disperse the moisture they take up from their roots. Ligularia and primulas are good for a dash of colour. Ferns are great too and add interest. They come in many varieties so check what the particular plant likes. Some like shade and arent keen on full sun.

I've got a phlox that does well too. The normal paniculata likes moist soil, but I think mine is a maculata variety.

I also have an excess of self-seeding red campion and herb Robert , and a pale celandine cultivar - woodland type plants I suppose. And some vinca which works as ground cover.

Rodgersia and astilboides tabularis are good in shade. Other things that are happy in my own boggy garden are filipendula (sun), thalictrum delayvi, bleeding hearts, shuttlecock fern, astilbe, snakehead fritillaries, Solomon’s seal, camassia, fothergilla, and many types of candelabra and Himalayan primulas.

Speaking of wild flowers, ragged robbin loves damp ground and has self seeded in my garden which I’m very happy about.

Any "marginal" pond plants will do well such as these

We have ferns and they seem to do well in quite wet soil.

Yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia), purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicicaria), marsh marigold (Caltha palustris), Lady smock (cardamine pratense). These are all UK natives, all of them garden-worthy, and all have garden varieties.

Meadow sweet would work too.

Great opportunity to grow Royal fern.

I have a Swamp cypress

I've got some enormous pink thing related to meadowsweet, can't remember offhand what it's called.

I’d love a swamp cypress but my neighbours wouldn’t 😂 Beautiful trees though.
I grew meadowsweet from seed a couple of years ago and I love it. Comes back every year and smells wonderful. There’s a massive stand of it down the road on some waste ground and at its peak the smell is incredible.

Wow, thanks so much everyone. I certainly have enough ideas to look at now. Fingers crossed for home delivery!

We have a lot of red Valerian, which strangely grows in the very boggy beds and in the dry gravel and sandy gaps between brickwork. It self seeds all over the place but the tall pink pretty flowers are a nice pop of colour.

We have a lot of daffodils and winter pansies in our boggy part shaded beds for colour through winter and spring, then the pink Valerian and giant daisies take over in summer. I had some success with Lupins and snapdragons in the bog too. We have roses that have been growing slowly for a year but look very healthy so they will hopefully flower despite the boggy soil. I think you can add sand to dry it out a bit?

I hope you get deliveries of what you want, it'll be nice when everything flowers if we're still stuck at home.

I grew meadowsweet from seed a couple of years ago and I love it. Comes back every year and smells wonderful. Did you know the base of the leaf stem smells of TCP? It was where they originally got aspiring from - so-called because at the time Meadowsweet was thought to be in the genus Spiraea, then they found willow bark (Salix) also had it, so the chemical is known as acetylSALIcilic acid

I did not know that! Might have to resort to chewing the leaves then if we run out of painkillers

Thankfully the flowers don’t smell like TCP although saying that I do love the smell of witchazel flowers so maybe I just like a medicinal fragrance!

In our damp and half-shady corner the lilac runs riot, the azeleas do well, a camellia thrives, a hazelnut tree is happy, and foxgloves and hellebores and cowslips are well.

Ash and maple ate meant to be more tolerant of boggy ground. A willow too perhaps?

You have a way with words, Stella

Many years ago our dog ate a peace lily, which we hadn't realised is (supposedly) toxic due to high levels of oxalic acid, and which the previous dog had never shown any interest in. While we were having a panicked phone call with the out of hours vet (of course it was a bank holiday), the dog went into the garden and ate a lot of the meadowsweet type plant.

He was none the worse for any of this (he's a healthy 14yo now) so we wondered if he'd somehow self-medicated. And we belatedly checked our houseplants for toxicity.

The previous dog was very fond of Pulmonaria leaves.

@errolthedragon I belatedly dug out all the autumn crocus which the previous owners had planted 25 years ago, beautiful but deady. My cat died of nervous system impairment and was in a lot of pain and it only occured to me afterwards that it might have been these fleeting ghosts that got into her system. Cant prove it though, nit sure, but never risking it again.
I had dug out all the lilies and yellow peace lilies years earlier but didnt do the autumn crocus 😭

Forgot to say, sorry; the border is quite neat and it's next to a path. Something small or, preferably, more upright would be good.

Ah, so not a gunnera then.

From the ones I have, the phlox, astilbe and candelabra (and other) primroses might be the sort of thing you're after.