Water gardening is one of the most overlooked features that you can add to your garden. Benefits are many: Plants Water Gardening offers you a new grouping of plants to enjoy. Some of my favorites include Black Taro (stunning!), Papyrus (great structure!), miniature Cattails, Louisianna Iris (gorgeous), Water Hyacinths and, of course, water lillies. Water plants are just set into the pond in containers making it easy to rearrange the plants (no digging!) to please your eye. They grow so quickly in a season that you need to divide the plant out the beginning of the season. During the winter the hardy plants are set deeper into the water in milder climates...and some I buy every year...they are worth it! Sound This is one of the most overlooked benefits. We work so hard to make our gardens beautiful to the eye...but we forget about how the garden 'sounds'...The pleasant sounds of trickling water attract birds and to diffuse traffic noise or loud neighbors. It is amazing how your ear picks up the sounds that it WANTS to hear. A couple of summers ago my pump went out after many years use...The loss of the pleasant water sounds was startling. I dropped everything and drove to the store for a new pump! Visual Birds, butterflies and dragonflies are attracted to water so the activity around your pond is a treat. I also buy inexpensive goldfish (9 cents per fish) to put in the pond. They help eat any larvae and other water critters. The orange flash from the goldfish adds yet one more element to the pond...and the children love to feed the fish! |
Water Plants and Bog Plants were the inspiration that led me to installing several water features in my garden. Water loving plants add a whole new demension to gardening. When planting a plant in our garden we till the soil and add amendements but with water plants we do the oposite. It is best to plant in clay with fine gravel on the surface. You do need to fertilize with water plant fertilizers that you poke into the clay. The plant will sit on a shelf just below the surface of the water so test your pot before planting to make sure that it is shallow enough. I prefer the basket style planters as they are shallow but wide to accomodate the growth that your plant will have during the growing season. Below are a few examples of the plants available for your water garden. Check back as I will post more pictures as the season unfolds. |
Here are some pictures of our pond from last summer. This is late in the summer when the water plants have grown so much that I had to move some out so that you could see the water! |
