Aquatic plants are a great asset to any garden pond.
Not only do they give the pond a more natural
appearance, but they can help the pond's biological
ecosystem.
Aquatic plants are planted in baskets and kept afloat.
The baskets are designed specifically
for that purpose and come in different shapes and sizes.
 Many
types of aquatic plant are invasive species in different
parts of the world. Aquatic plants make particularly
good weeds because they reproduce from fragments. Many
fish keepers and aquarium hobbyists keep aquatic plants
in their tanks to oxygenate the water for their fish.
Aquatic plants are one of
many plants that can be helped through organic
gardening.
Basics for each pond plant type
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Types 1,2 & 3 |
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Types 4, 5 & 6 |
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Water lilies
(pond plants: type 1)
Water lilies are best suited to ponds about 3 feet deep.
They need deeper water to flourish in general. Water
lilies are strong aquatic plants that root firmly in
soil and debris at the bottom of natural ponds. Leaves
float on water surface. Some water lily types only
flower at night, while others are highly scented.
Oxygenators
(pond plants: type 2 also called oxygenating aquatic
plants)
The most important type of aquatic plant from the point
of view of the pond's creatures. These plants do as the
name suggest . They add oxygen to pond water.
Oxygenators are totally submerged water plants. These
aquatic plants can never exist out of water. They root
in soil or float rootless under water.
Floating
(water plants: type 3)
Some floating pond plants have become real nuisances in
large waterways ... e.g. the water hyacinth. These
aquatic garden pond plants are small to medium and move
freely in the pond. They can grow at prodigious rates
when a body of water contains lots of nitrogen and
phosphate nutrients.
Partly emerging (pond plants: type 4)
Water pond plants like these root into mud and show
strong growth and flowers project out of the pond water.
There are many kinds of aquatic plants fitting this
description.
Marginals
(pond plants: type 5)
The edges around a pond are called margins. It is a
point (in a natural waterway) where water floods on
occasions and is generally moist to very wet and even
continuously covered in shallow water. Certain plants
love these wet shallow areas. Marginal plants create the
longest list of water or aquatic plants. These water
garden pond plants generally do not like drying out.
Bog plants (pond plants: type 6)
If a garden has a low lying point where rain tends to
collect then this is a prime spot for bog plants.
Similar to group 6 water garden pond plants. Wet mud is
all that is required for these water or bog type aquatic
plants to do well.
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