Garden Ponds & Plants
This section contains several articles that might be better filed under my water gardening website but I hope you enjoy them nevertheless. I think you’ll find them of use in your pond maintenance. The other articles are self-explanatory with the links below.
There are a few simple things that you’ll want to consider when planning your garden pond plant scheme:
The first is the plants themselves. There are some plants that will simply not appreciate having wet feet (lavenders for example) and will “melt” away when given this growing environment. The articles here list some of the better plants for wet or bog garden conditions.
The second is the soil you use. I have found that waterside plants do much better (for the most part) when the soil is heavy. For many years, I’ve used the clay from my farm irrigation pond excavation to fill my water lily pots. Lilies grow much better in this clay than they do in regular garden soil or artificial soil composed of mostly peat moss. Garden centres however do not use this because it is too heavy on the pots and the backs of the labour.
The third is the amount of water available to bog garden plantings. I’ve sunk several large waterproof tubs next to some of my smaller ponds so I can water the planting tubs at the same time as I refill the water pond. Bog plants want constant moisture if they are to perform their best.
The last – at least on this page :-) - is the amount of sunlight the plants need and receive. It is important that you plan your plantings based on what amount of sunlight a plant requires. For example, while a hosta makes an excellent plant for garden ponds in the shade, in the full sunlight it will tend to lose its colour and “bleach” out. Similarly, Coreopsis rosea makes a good bog side plant in full sun but disappears quite quickly if you give it shady conditions.
Plant Lists
Lotus -you might find growing lotus to be a good idea around your bog area - although they do need to be constantly moist, here's the way to succeed with this plant.Perennials for wet spots. These plants will all survive in damp soils and this would be your starting spot for finding good plants
Questions and Answers
Use the form below to ask questiona about pond perennials.
Please understand that I get hundreds of questions every week across my sites and I (unfortunately) can't get to them all. I do my best and I can only offer my apologies if I can't get to yours.
Got A Pond Perennial Question?
If you have a question about a pond perennila or growing, then feel free to ask it using this form.
Please note that the advice is by nature a general one - I can't help you with every problem (although I do try) but I may be able to point you to resources that will help you.
If you have a picture of the problem or situation, feel free to upload it here as well. Please keep the pic under 100K to speed uploading
What Other Visitors Have Asked about Pond Perennials
Click below to see questions from other visitors to this page...
Looking for extremely thirsty plants - pond plants appropriate? We have spots in our backyard that get standing water for days following a heavy enough rain. Are there uber thirsty plants that will soak this up, and ...
transplanting spiderwort
Spiderwort roots seem fairly shallow - do I need to cut back when transplanting?
Doug says that given you're moving the plant when it's dormant, and ...
transplanting lotus I need to transplant my lotus and there seems to be a long runner coming from the tuber that has about 9 sprouts, each with it's own root. Can I cut this ...
