A visit to Mark Reinke's Bog

[kirkauburn]

Greetings all!

This past Sunday, Mark Reinke granted me the unique pleasure to come visit his bog in a beautiful remote area of South Carolina. Mark is a master grower of both Sarracenia as well as rare orchids and operates his own nursery, selling orchids at sales throughout the Southeast. Fortunately for me, Mark was also gracious enough to allow me to bring my girlfriend and both our mothers so they could pick out a few orchids for mothers day. 

Mark spent 6 years building his bog environment and it is one of the most striking collections I have ever seen. There is a pond in the middle with lilies which is fed from a local creek. Mark's bog also hosts a number of different frog species (which he listed for me but I am unable to remember) and all kinds of wildlife. Outside of his bog, Mark has several greenhouses and his large property is home to all kinds of great native and non-native species which were spectacular this time of year. I hope you enjoy the pictures half as much as I enjoyed my trip out there!
















The man himself schooling me on some of his awesome clones



Mark called this a sort of experimental corner with some crosses he received a long time ago... Looks pretty good to me!


We were all enamored learning from Mark about all the different aspects to maintaining such a spectacular environment






I was a kid in a candy store.. I wanted to stay there all day!


Mark has some great streams flowing through his property, the mountain laurel in bloom was also quite striking





All in all, I have seen some pretty awesome collections since I started in this hobby but Mark's bog was definitely my favorite collection to visit. There really was something new and different in every corner of his bog and all the plants in his bog were so big and established. Mark was a gracious host and a true master of his craft! 

[dj57]

Wow! Looks like an awesome place to visit, thanx for posting!

[arda]

Looking great man.

One question. Is the water of creek usable for cps? Are they always low on ppm?

[AudacityOfTheMind]

That's a nice little Bog there

[gotsarrs]

May 18, 2017 4:37:22 GMT -5 AudacityOfTheMind said:

That's a nice little Bog there

Yes, it is. I really like the last three pictures of the plants growing right in the edge of the water.

[kirkauburn]

Hello Arda,

Yes Mark actually mentioned PPM in the water as low as 4 PPM! Not sure if the lilies or other plantings/sphagnum mounds help with keeping the water pure or if they are just blessed with super clean natural water.

[gotsarrs]

May 18, 2017 20:07:03 GMT -5 kirkauburn said:

Hello Arda,

Yes Mark actually mentioned PPM in the water as low as 4 PPM! Not sure if the lilies or other plantings/sphagnum mounds help with keeping the water pure or if they are just blessed with super clean natural water.

My rain water measures 4 ppm so that's really good for ground water. As you say, it's probably a combination of good water to begin with, moving water and the sphagnum acting as a filter. Your friend is a lucky man.  

[sprouse58]

Beautiful setup to say the least. Natural looking is always better in my opinion. Another thank you for posting the pictures.

[nevermore]

That is awesome!

[kirkauburn]

Hello again everyone! With the slow spring we've had in the south things in this area are just getting going, but we finally had a nice warm weekend to go visit Mark's bog! The bog was completely covered in flowers, Mark mentioned there were over 1,200 but even ballparking it I would say that is a conservative estimate. For me Spring is by far the most exciting time of year, even if the plants are just starting out their pitchers. Mark had the patience to put up with my hundreds of questions, so if anyone has any questions I will do my best to answer - he has a profile here and occasionally posts but is not always active when he is busy with shows and sales. His spectacular bog is by far the most unique representation of a realistic bog I have ever seen and the diversity of species on his property and within the bog is mind-boggling. Add to that he operates a massive orchid greenhouse and nursery with a tissue culture lab to boot and his collection is exceptionally impressive. Now on to the photos!

The pitchers not being fully opened made it easier to view the pools! Fed from a creek that is spring-fed on the property. One of the unique things about Mark's bog is that the media is actually crushed granite from a local quarry with some peat moss mixed in and tons of live sphagnum on the top of the bed. The plants really respond to it and on top of that it's cheap! This might be an easy alternative to explore for the peat-free crowd that is more sustainable (I would think) then harvested peat


















This island of jonesii alone had to have at least a few hundred blooms with a number of other 'volunteer' seedlings scattered throughout the bog. Mark noted that his jonesii actually do not respond to being cut back in the spring and the one time he clipped them in March set them back several years.



Mark's greenhouse seedling setup! Easy to see why he has so many winners outside - he has two full racks packed with seedlings like this in his greenhouse with a number of clones I noticed that were cultivar-worthy









His tropical/other setup is also very impressive, this is on one of his orchid benches in the greenhouse where he grows out VFT from seed, select sarracenia clones, as well as other extremely happy heliamphora/drosera/cephs







A very impressive P. gigantea next to a happy sarracenia seedling



Bonus shots of his orchid rows! There are three rows like this with any kind of orchid you can imagine, he also has a large open area near his swamp cooler in the front of the greenhouse with some of his specimen plants. You'll have to take my word for it when I say they are some of the most impressive plants, let alone orchids, I have ever seen. Mark spends his spring visiting various orchid shows in the southeast and has an entire walls worth of awards he has accumulated over the years





Fixing the pictures, whoops

[meizzwang]

WOW!!!!

[AudacityOfTheMind]

WOWAWIWA

[kirkauburn]

Looks like my images from last year were somehow removed! Just gonna add these here to show how the bog looks in all its summer glory! These pictures are from mid-May of last year so this doesn't even have the fall crop going. Mark has a stand of leucos that is over 5 feet in diameter along with countless moorei crosses that don't show their full glory until September hits.

Starting out the pictures with a shot of Mark's media - again he uses primarily crushed granite with a small amount of peat moss mixed in. While heavy, this mix is very affordable and I would think more sustainable then the peat-based mixes mostly seen. Most importantly, his plants seem to really love it! I'm sure the cool spring water probably also helps, but his plants in containers look much happier and more vigorous than my plants in the traditional peat/sand mix. I now have a few plants in deep containers with the granite mix as a control, so I will examine them this year and may convert my other plants to crushed granite going forward if they continue to outperform.

[Horizon46]

Impressive ! Thanks for sharing !
Tell us about when you have results with your trial of crushed granite mix.
In your pictures the bog seems to be shaded, right ?

[kirkauburn]

May 2, 2018 14:22:17 GMT -5 Horizon46 said:

Impressive ! Thanks for sharing !
Tell us about when you have results with your trial of crushed granite mix.
In your pictures the bog seems to be shaded, right ?

Can’t believe I forgot to respond to this but it actually worked out because now I’ve been able to test the crushed granite mix. After growing plants in the granite mix I believe this media is actually I’ll-suited for growing plants in smaller containers unless you get frequent rainfall washing through the soil. In my experience, the granite performed comparably to the peat mix I use normally, however I believe it became dense very quickly once the plants became large. I think it’s ideal for Marks setup because he has cool water constantly flowing in and out of his bog, pulling oxygen through the media while allowing it not to break down as quickly as more organic mixes like peat.

also - his bog is very shaded, particularly in the afternoon, but gets a lot of direct sun throughout the day that allows the plants to color up wonderfully! He has a steep hillside to the west which means his microclimate gets much cooler nights than we experience in other parts of the south. I think this might also have something to do with why his plants are so healthy and vigorous, and he doesn’t experience as much rot as many other southern growers like myself.