By Bev Johnson

Master Gardener

Peat lands only cover about 3% of the Earth’s land area but they hold up to one third of the world’s earth carbon. When peat is harvested the carbon dioxide is released into the air adding to the greenhouse effect. Here in Minnesota, we have Minnesota’s Big Bog State Recreation Area located in Waskish.

The average depth of the peat layer is 10 feet with fresh water 24 inches under it. It’s like a waterbed with poor drainage. The plant material that grows on the top of the bog accumulates at the slow rate of 1/32 of an inch a year. It can take 1,000 years for one meter of peat to form. It is a very acidic environment. The author, Gail Hudson, compares it to the acidity in tomato juice. The only nutrients coming into the bog are from rain and blown in dust from the eroding soils of surrounding farms.  One would think that nothing could grow in such an acidic environment, but there are a surprising variety of plants that do very well there. Multiple moss species grow on the surface, rooting on dead plant material. Several carnivorous plants grow in the bog including the purple pitcher plant, the round-leaved sundew, and the rare linear-leaved sundew.  In the spring and summer, you can see our native orchids in bloom; the pink lady’s slipper, the yellow lady‘s slipper, the stemless lady’s slipper, the dragon’s mouth orchid, and the tuberous grass pink orchid. The white-green wild calla lily with her heart shaped leaves, the bright yellow marsh marigold, and the dazzling star flower add color.

The northern dewberry, a member of the rose family, is a shrub that behaves like a woody vine in the bog, with stems up to 15 feet long. It has berries that taste like a cross between a strawberry and a raspberry. You can also snack on the bog cranberry either raw or cooked. Another low shrub is the Bog rosemary, a shrub in the blueberry family. It has soft pink to white flowers that look like hanging bells on upright pale green stems.

There is no dearth of green plants either.  The pointed shiny leaves of the False Soloman’s seal stand out against the mat of sphagnum moss. The low growing evergreen Labrador tea pokes out here and there through the moss. Her fragrant leaves have a fuzzy rust colored underside and make a tea that is high in vitamin C. The fuzzy coat protects the leaves in the winter. This tea is a traditional medicine for the Ojibwe. Most of the bog’s shrubs have leathery leaves that protect them from the acidic water they grow in.   

The less acidic edges of the bog are home to a lusher vegetation. Here you will find dogwood, many varieties of willow, bog birch, leather leaf and bog laurel. The bog is a critical habitat where you can see more than 100 species of migratory birds that stop in the bog in the spring and fall to rest and feast on insects. You may even see the rare great grey owl from Canada. Other visitors are sandhill cranes and sharp-tailed grouse.

On the raised ‘islands’ you can see black spruce, some more than 100 years old. Tamarack trees can live here as the needles fall off every fall and decompose at the base of the tree. The bog absorbs the nutrients of the needles to feed the tree so she can produce more needles next spring.

This delicate ecosystem has been well protected from any new human-created disturbances thanks to a grassroots effort 25 years ago to create and protect it and attract tourists to this economically impoverished area. One nice thing about this place- – no mosquitoes. The water is too acidic for their eggs.  This fascinating info is from an article in the American Gardener, written by Gale Hudson a horticulturist and journalist.