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Yeah just wondering what kinds I could put in there
Aquatic plants for zone 5
- Thread starter Pondguy3579
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Pond plants fall into three categories: underwater (lilies and lotuses), floaters (hyacinth and water lettuce) and marginals (everything else). There are tons of varieties of hardy lilies - you choose based on color and size mostly. Some stay smaller; others spread to cover a big area. Floating plants aren't hardy, but they are cheap to buy and if they like your pond multiply quickly. They will die at the first hard frost. Marginals are things like cattails, sedges, irises, grasses, water canna... there are lots and lots. If you have a good pond supply store they will tell you which are considered hardy for zone 5.
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just be careful what you choose as some are very invasive. If you're planning on continual oversight, you'll be fine but such as cattails, while great as water filters, can be horrendous to get rid of/thin. The better filters are such as Lisa mentioned; water lettuce (likes a bit less sun but can adapt) and water hyacinth (likes to be crowded). Both are great as they develop long roots (IF the fish don't eat them all first, like they now are doing to mine!) Both of these last two floaters can propagate very fast, which can be good and bad. Typically, before my fish started harvesting the floaters themselves, by mid summer, I had to haul out half the population and compost them or I'd not see the surface of my pond. But, they are very good for filtering. Yellow and Blue flag iris are also great, but watch as they too can get out of hand if you turn your back on them.
Michael
Michael
JBtheExplorer
Native Gardener
Blue Flag Iris, Horsetail, and Smooth Black Sedge are some of the marginals I use.
Oh I always forget horsetail rush! One of my favorites. Someone referred to mine as scouring rush - I think it's the same plant, just a different name?
Parrots feather is another pretty plant to grow and easy to control. It's a marginal that will spread out over the water (if your fish will leave it alone) and between rocks. And it can grow from a deeper spot than many marginals. And I love my bog bean which also grows from the shallows out into and across the pond if you let it!
Hardy waterlilies, pond iris, cattail, thalia, lizard's tail, scirpus rush, arrowhead, pickerel, spearwort, water fringe, arrow arum, garters, golden club, mimulus, forget me not, creeping jenny, lobelia, pennywort, glyceria, spike rush, marsh marigold, flowering rush, Bog arum, water plantain, dwarf sweet flag
Should give you a bit of a choice
Should give you a bit of a choice