Perplexed newbie - Marginal plant

[EdinSpain]

Hello everyone,

This is our new toy, a pond in Spain. The last one was in Essex 40 years ago!
It's very much a work in progress at present. We're suffering from temperatures of 40ºC at the moment and the pond is getting a lot of sunshine. We're using Algorem and realise that we probably haven't got enough plants providing shade. A friend brought us the water hyacinth yesterday but we do realise that that may not be a good thing!! The question we have is about the Arrow Head plant. We're not certain exactly what plant it is, the scientific name, variety etc. and we're a bit perplexed about it's form of growth, the clearly visible long runners that it's putting out, are they roots, stems?. Any information about this plant, in particular how to care for it, would be gratefully received. As we're not in the UK we're not certain that we're doing the right thing posting here. Will more photographs and comments about our experience be welcome? We look forward to hearing from kind people who can put us straight.

Ed & Lulu.

 

[addy1]

Looks like you are have a taro, or elephant ear plant on the left, the hyacinth, a great plant for you pond, and a umbrella plant on the right. See some parrots feather, maybe a lily.

Not sure of the plant down near the rocks, can't see it well enough, looks like it is growing on the water surface.

 

[DrCase]

Welcome to the Forum
let the shoot grow and see if a extra plant grows from it

 

[pinon ponder]

It looks like a Colocasia. Colocasia generally have leaves that point down, as yours does. Just to confuse things, so do some Alocasia. lol I have Alocasia Gagaena California growing on a shallow shelf in my pond. Alocasia isn't supposed to like wet feet but mine doesn't seem to care. Colocasia does like wet feet, so try it as a marginal. It should soak up some excess nutrients and thrive.

They are native to tropical jungles, so can thrive in shade, but Colocasia likes full sun, too. They do like heat and humidity. The tubers send out the long runners you are seeing. You may get more tubers on the runners. More tubers mean more plants!

Just a thought, if you haven't already, take it out of the pot and look for the plant tag. The plant tag for mine was buried half into the plant roots. Guess the plant grew a bit before I bought it.

 

[DrDave]

I have many of these, looks similar. I call them Taro.

 

[EdinSpain]

Thanks to all you kind people for your suggestions. I got off on the wrong foot by thinking that this site was British, clearly not so. I apologize. The plant that addy1 refers to is water lettuce (Pistia Stratiotes), and he's right about the umbrella plant and the "parrot's feather". Thanks for that, we didn't have a name for it. The flowering water lily is plastic!! I'm still not certain what the "elephant ear" is, I'm inclined to think it's more Taro than Colocasia but I'm by no means certain. I said nothing in my original post about fish. The pond is populated with Goldfish, 7 mature ones that came from a friend's pond and an uncertain number of little ones that have bred in the pond. They seem to be quite happy. We have two pumps in the pump that just circulate water, no filter. We have a neighbor who has a pond of about 500 liters, it's populated with barbs, no pumps, no filters, and the water is crystal clear. Our pond suddenly turned very green about 2 weeks ago which means we rarely see the fish. We're tackling it by using Algorem from Tetra but our neighbor says it will eventually sort itself out as it matures and finds it's balance. We probably do need more plants. We're located on the south coast of Spain and with climate change Summer temperatures are now reaching 40ºCelsius in the shade. The pond gets many hours of direct sunlight. I'm attaching another 2 photographs.

 

[addy1]

No need to apologize, there are a lot of european, british people on this forum, also a lot of usa type people and others, an across the world forum. Glad you joined our group!

Elephant ear is taro just a different name for it.

Without a filter you may have issues with green water, a filter grows good algae eating bacteria to help keep your pond water clean and clear. Plants do use up a lot of the food that algae likes to live on, so more plants will help a lot with your green water.

Is your pond new? It will go through a new pond time, green water, murky.

 

[fishin4cars]

As Pinion Ponder pointed out, there are two types ( The leaves of both look almost identical in the Green coloration form) My understanding the the difference between the two for identity is the TRUE elephant ear is a bulb, taro grows from runners or tubers similar to a lotus tuber. Both like water but the taro can grow directly in water and never needs drying out. A TRUE elephant ear does best where it can dry out the bulb from time to time but yet can still draw in plenty of water. Also Taro's can be grown easily in pots, Elephant ears don't do well except in extremely large post because there roots grow straight down to draw moisture where the Taro grows far more shallow and and send out multiple shots for drawing water in.

 

[EdinSpain]

In answer to addy1's question, yes the pond is new. The first fish and plants were put in there on the 21st of June. What fish4cars has said has tipped us in favor of the plant being a Taro which brings us back to the question of the runners. The plant is in a pot sitting on a shelf of the pond and is only partly submerged in water. The runners come out of the pot sideways, tip down into the water and then start to grow upwards again. Some are already showing signs of new shoots coming from the runners. What to do about this in view of the limited amount of space that we have?.We have a number of photographs taken as the pond was built, should we post these into the Pond Showcase forum?

 

[addy1]

If you don't want more taro's just clip the runner off. I have some growing out into my pond, but i have the room to handle them.

The pond showcase would be a great place, post your pictures so we can see what you have done.

 

[DrDave]

I clip off the runners and plant them in #5 containers and sell them to other pond owners here. You would be surprised how quickly the sales allow more money for the pond addiction.

 

[fishin4cars]

I leave some I cut some and start new ones, I have seven variaties of taro's now so I can't cut and plant all the runners but I do try and start three or four of each kind for trading or selling. the rest I let grow or snip off and throw in a bucket, Used to just throw them in a compost pile until I figured out, I eneded up with more growing in there than the pond! LOL

 

[addy1]

I tend to just give away excess. So far have shipped boxes of plants............

 

[EdinSpain]

Many thanks to all who have commented on the runners of what we believe is a Taro. We've decided to wait and see what happens, I don't think it'll be too long a wait, they seem to grow at quite a speed. I'm attaching 3 more photos. The first featuring 2 little fellows that my wife has bought to prettify the pond and the other 2 related to a question my wife has. The 2nd photo is of the water lily that we have and the 3rd the newly acquired water hyacinth. As you can see some of the leaves (water lily) and tubers(?), hyacinth, are in a deteriorated state. Are we supposed to clean the plants up by cutting these off or do they provide food for the goldfish.?

 

[HARO]

Just pinch off the parts that turn brown, otherwise they will overwhelm your bacteria. It's perfectly normal, as old leaves die off to be replaced by younger ones. John