Water Gardening: Prepare to Plant

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Rich Binsacca

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Growing aquatic plants in a thriving water garden has its unique challenges. The key is to be well-prepared from the start.

Now that you’ve installed your water feature, it’s time for the real fun to begin: adding your plants. While most aspects of planting aquatics are similar to planting other gardens, there are just enough differences to add a little extra interest and discovery.

Generally speaking, aquatic plants should be planted after the last frost of the cool season, once warm spring temperatures have become established and are consistent. (The exact date depends on your particular region and climate and, to a lesser degree, your desire to stagger blooms throughout the season.)

In a natural environment, aquatic plants grow in the soil at the bottom of a pond or stream, or along its shoreline. There’s actually a method for growing submerged and shoreline plants in soil within a water garden liner. In fact, some rigid liners are molded with depressions in them to hold soil. The prevailing and preferred planting method, however, is to avoid placing soil directly into the liner, simply because it makes things easier: It eases thinning and fertilizing chores, lessens debris and loose soil that can clog pumps and filters, reduces overall soil needs, makes cleaning the liner easier for you and safer for your plants, and allows you to easily isolate sick plants.

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It’s best to plant most aquatic plants in submersible containers or baskets with porous sides. This permits easy care, including the ability to quickly reposition the plant in the water garden or remove it for fertilizing, pest control, pruning and deadheading.

Shoreline species should be planted in amended native soil outside the edge of the liner and watered frequently to keep them moist. Note that some shoreline plants can be invasive, and some have soil needs different than typical garden soil. The solution for both of these issues is to install your plants in containers before burying them in the shoreline soil.

Within the feature, you can just pour floaters from their containers onto the water surface and let them float away or tether them with nylon fishing leader. Install marginals and deep-water submersibles in prepared soil placed in 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 as indicated on its label.

Warnings

Always watch your children and pets around water! Although a garden pond is not a swimming pool, curious minds can’t help themselves, and accidents can happen.
When it comes to planting aquatics in their submerged pots, avoid metal containers that might corrode or leach into the water. Also avoid solid containers that would restrict the flow of water and dissolved gasses to the plant’s roots inside the pots.

Facts

You can find containers specifically manufactured for aquatic plants at many nurseries and garden centers. They’re usually baskets made of rigid or flexible plastic. Other options include terra-cotta pots, natural fiber and woven willow baskets, and polypropylene bags punctured with copious drainage holes.

Tips

It’s best to plant most aquatic plants in submersible containers or baskets with porous sides. This permits easy care, including quickly repositioning the plant in the feature and removing it for fertilizing, pest control, pruning, and deadheading.
Soil plays a different role for aquatic plants than it does for those that grow in your garden. Aquatics get most of their nutrition from the dissolved nutrients found in the feature’s water, not from the soil. So what does the soil do? It anchors the plants, keeping them in place even where the water is moving swiftly.

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Articles

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.
Preparing the Soil for Your Aquatic Plants
It’s no secret that water gardens are beautiful, but under the surface lies all the “dirt” behind the beauty: soil. Learn two quick step-by-step demonstrations for properly preparing the soil that shoreline, marginal and submerged aquatic plants prefer in order to thrive.
Planting Submerged Aquatics in Your Garden Pond
Water gardens bring unique interest to the landscape, whether the plants are lining a pond shore, floating atop the calm water or swaying partially submerged from their depths. Learn more about planting water garden plants, as well as the steps to properly planting submerged aquatics – then float toward success.

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