How to Select Plants for a Garden Pond

Plants add color and beauty to a garden pond, but also play an important role in controlling algae and adding oxygen to the water. When planning a garden pond with aquatic plants, select a sunny location. Pond plants include deep water, shallow water, submerged, floating and bog varieties. Plants can be planted in pea gravel at the bottom of the pond, in raised pots or floating baskets. Read on to learn more.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Achieve a colorful pond with deep-water perennials like the lotus and water lily. These popular pond plants come in many colors including red, white, pink and yellow. Plant them at the bottom of the pond or in raised pots so the leaves and flowers are floating on the surface of the water.

2. Use upright marginals, such as cattails, reeds and dwarf bamboo to create visual interest and fish habitats in your pond. They have roots in the water but the stems and leaves rise out of the water. Place them in potted plants set on bricks or in floating baskets so the roots are underwater at least several inches.

3. Plant submerged plants in pea gravel at the bottom of the pond or in submerged pots to add oxygen to the water, clarify the water and create fish habitats. Approximately one bunch per square foot of pond surface is recommended. Common varieties include fanwort, arrowhead, hornwort and elodea.

4. Place floating plants on the surface of the water to help control algae by limiting the amount of direct sunlight reaching the water surface. Floating plants have hair-like roots and do not require soil. Water hyacinths, duckweed and water lettuce are hardy choices.

5. Create a natural transition at the edge of you pond with bog plants including ferns, hostas and calla lilies. These plants cannot have submerged roots, but thrive in moist, muddy soil.

Tips & Warnings

• Wait a few days for chlorine to evaporate from a newly filled pond before adding plants.
• Choose native plants that are hardy in winter for a year-round pond.
• Pour a thin layer of gravel over potting soil. Or, use soil that will not float when putting potted plants in the pond.
• Some floating plants are very invasive and have been outlawed in some states.