Planting Marginals | Plant Marginal Aquatics: Gardening

Helping You Become a More Successful Gardener

When filling your garden pond with aquatics, submerged marginals should be planted in their specialized containers first, then installed in your water feature to their specified depth: shallow-depth marginals to 6 inches or less, deep-depth marginals 6-12 inches deep and deep-water submersibles more than 1 foot deep. To install your submerged marginals, just take the simple steps shown in the following pictures and described in their captions.

Planting Marginal Aquatics - Step 1

Install plants on the marginal shelves of your water feature, at the recommended depth for the species. Make sure the container is secure and stable on the shelf.

Planting Marginal Aquatics - Step 2

For shallow-depth marginals, place the container so that the rim is slightly showing. This will allow water to lap over the edge while avoiding constant soil saturation.

Planting Marginal Aquatics - Step 3

Plant invasive marginal plants in containers as you would other aquatics, but then bury the containers inside separate liner pockets located at the edge of the feature to keep those plants from spreading. Provide a reliable source of water other than that from the water feature, such as with drip irrigation.

Planting Marginal Aquatics - Step 4

Allow space for planting containers in quiet corners of a watercourse or stream by digging holes for them before you install the flexible liner. Finish the stream installation with coping stones along the edges. Anchor the containers within the depressions using rocks around their sides, filling the hole to stream-bottom depth and disguising the planters.

Planting Marginal Aquatics - Step 5

If necessary (especially on hot days when the water may evaporate quickly), provide supplementary water to shoreline plants, as well as adequate drainage away from the water feature. If this becomes a recurring problem, add a layer of mulch around these plants to help retain moisture.

Warnings

Always watch children and pets around water! Although garden ponds and other water features aren’t swimming pools, curious minds can’t help themselves (especially if streams and waterfalls are involved)!

Facts

Contained marginal plants are often set on shelves built into a preformed liner. Building a water feature with shelves at preset levels appropriate to the aquatic plants you intend to grow avoids the need for complex and unsightly risers in a pond of uniform depth.

Tips

Install marginals and deep-water submersibles in prepared soil placed into specialized shallow containers and topped by a thin coat of holding gravel. Submerge the container into the water of the feature to the depth required by the specific plant.
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Wait 2-5 days after filling your feature with water before placing your plants into it. This allows water-treatment chemicals common in municipal supplies time to evaporate. The length of wait-time needed depends on your feature’s water volume.
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Next Steps

Aquatic Environments: Selecting Healthy Aquatic Plants
As with picking any garden plant, it’s crucial that the aquatics you pick for your water garden are healthy from the very start. Learn the considerations in growing in an aquatic environment, as well as what to look for when choosing healthy water plants.
Planting Your Water Garden: Preparing Containers and Baskets
Planting aquatics in specialized baskets and containers makes pond maintenance and plant care easier, as well as allows constant water circulation and helps prevent erosion. Learn the easy steps to properly preparing these containers for planting.
Testing and Treating Garden Pond Water
Balanced water quality is essential to maintaining a healthy water garden. Don’t let your pond water cloud your plants – or good judgment. Learn the common symptoms of water-quality distress and the simple steps to testing your pond’s water to make sure your ecosystem thrives…without all the algae!

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Planting Marginal Aquatics