Recommend shelf plants zone 6 that can grow 6" under water

[Faebinder]

My irises are just not spreading on the shelf as much as they are in the bog.

I need plants that will grow out of a 6" water shelf. Parrots feathers and what else?

 

[addy1]

I have lizards tail, pickerel weed, iris, rush, sweet flag growing in pots that are on a 12 inch shelf. The pots put the dirt level around 4 inches more or less. The iris are just in the water, around 10-12 inches deep, they are doing fine.
I yanked the pots a few years back.

 

[MoonShadows]

@addy1 How are you anchoring the iris?

 

[addy1]

@addy1 How are you anchoring the iris?

It was in pots with kitty litter, jumped the pots, so I just yanked it out of the pots plopped it down. There was some kitty litter left which kept the iris anchored. I have a small amount on the other side of the pond, I anchored them with some heavy rocks, the roots collect muck and finally anchor themselves.

 

[MoonShadows]

Thanks, addy

 

[Faebinder]

Yeah my irises are not spreading on the shelf just staying where they are and they arent potted.

 

[Waterbug]

My irises are just not spreading on the shelf as much as they are in the bog.

I need plants that will grow out of a 6" water shelf. Parrots feathers and what else?

Irises, at least the few types I've used, seem to do best when their rhizomes are above the water line. Also they do seem to need a fair amount of fertilizer. In smallish pots that might mean adding fertilizer.more often than when in a bed. This is all to get the biggest plants, most blooms, spreading plants.

Plants became a bigger part of the my pond hobby than even the fish which surprised me. So one thing I did was stop using traditional shelves and make a bed instead.

The only difference is an edge so the entire "shelf" can be filled with cay or gravel or your favorite "soil". Plants like iris then have lots of room to get their biggest. These beds also solve the problem of wind blowing pots over and into the bottom of the pond and raccoons tipping them over. I keep the top of the soil a bit above water line so the plants have wet feet but not wet crowns. This results in zero risk of string algae in the plants. I really don't like string algae in the plants..

Beds can be as wide as I like and could be seen as a "bog" that's around the edge of some of the pond. Water from pump can go into the bog/bed and travel around the edge of the pond and flow out, as a short water fall if desired, and back into the pond. This does reduce a problem with round/rectangular bogs where water just takes a basically direct path (called channelling) from source to outflow and bypassing most of the bog. Not that I consider a bog to be a realistic filter, but still think they're great for plants.

Existing traditional shelves can be retro fitted with beds. This can also help reduce collapsing shelves...but now I'm way off the subject. Sorry.

 

[Faebinder]

Existing traditional shelves can be retro fitted with beds. This can also help reduce collapsing shelves...but now I'm way off the subject. Sorry.

Explain please.

 

[Waterbug]

Explain please.

Using plastic wood like Trex or bender board you make what is basically a raised bed type structure, but with a couple of cross members on the bottom. Lower the pond level a bit below the shelf. Put down a bed of mortar where edges will be and set the structure into the mortar bed to level and fill the gaps between the uneven shelf and structure. Fill with whatever "soil" you want.

The mortar keeps most soil from getting into the pond but isn't water tight so plants always have wet feet. The structure can be left below the water line and soil topped with rock/gravel to get crowns above the water. Or the structure can extend above the water line and you have the option of pumping water into the structure.

You can also put a liner into the bed if you want zero soil getting into the pond and/or want to pump water into it and have a water fall coming out.

Trex is good for straight beds. Bender board is good for curves but you do need cross members between sides, not just on the bottom. The bottom cross members keep the sides from bowing but mainly the soil on top of them is what keeps the structure from floating.

Use aluminum nails, clinched, or stainless steel screws.

 

[sissy]

Any kind of grasses grow great .I leave mine in the pond all winter up in the waterfall pond .I used strawberries and cream grass .If pond is in shade even hostas will grow good

 

[Gordo33]

My irises are just not spreading on the shelf as much as they are in the bog.

I have a similar situation with yellow flag iris in a 100 gal stock tank bare root doing great and bare root on a plant shelf doing so so. Last year when cleaning the stock tank I noticed the iris roots where covered with muck . So thick I could not pass my hands through the roots . The roots in the pond are not covered with muck like the iris in the tank and stream. I wonder it the roots in your bog have collected muck and thrive off the nutrients that may be trapped.
Pic of iris August last year in stock tank, stream and pond.

Plants in the stream that have grown well for me are blue rush, strawberry and cream, water wisteria and forget me not. If I remember correct these require shallow water . They are planted bare root.

 

[Waterbug]

No iris that I know of requires shallow water. Sometimes seller will say something like 4" water. That's normally the maximum depth. Not sure if that's the case here.

 

[Gordo33]

No iris that I know of requires shallow water. Sometimes seller will say something like 4" water. That's normally the maximum depth. Not sure if that's the case here.

Probably true. One point I was making here is 4 years ago I was looking for plants to go in a stream and would do well in less than 4 inches of water. I was referring to the other plants I listed that do well in the stream. Based on my zone, shade v sun those were the plants recommended to me from a plant web site. Pics worth a thousand words . With regards to the iris I was just showing what happened to my iris which was similiar to the OP.

 

[Lisak1]

I started most of my marginals on our 10-12" deep shelves in pots. Eventually they all outgrew their pots so I just cut the pot off and plopped the whole clump on the shelf. The roots had grown around the dirt and gravel that I had filled the pots with, so the whole thing was rather heavy and didn't need anchoring. In several cases, I split the root ball down the middle so I had two half circles of plant mass and set those on the shelf with the flat sides up against the wall and the rounded side toward the pond. The plants then spread out from the root ball, so now it's hard to tell what started where. It's a pond jungle basically.

This method has been patented by me. Please mention my name anytime you copy it.

 

[Lisak1]

If pond is in shade even hostas will grow good

My pond hostas are in full sun and do great. They look beautiful up until mid-August when even our shaded hostas start to resent the heat.