You can also weigh pots down by putting stones or gravel on top. Look for peat-free aquatic compost in order to help stop the world’s precious peatlands from being destroyed. This is heavier than garden compost which will help stop it simply floating away when you submerge the pot. For marginals, you can also use the normal solid-sided pots as long as water can percolate up the holes in the base. This helps water – and tiny pond animals – to circulate around the roots. Most garden centres will stock aquatic plant pots to put in your pond, which have meshed sides. Most planting is best left until late May when the danger of frost damage has passed and plants are at their most active. These plants are especially important if you set your pond up to receive rainwater and spill out into a bog garden. They are often interchangeable with Marginals – like the marsh marigold above which will also grow in damp soil around your pond, helping your pond blend in with its surroundings and also providing shelter for amphibians heading in and out of your pond. These grown around your pond, just outside it, rather than in it. A good example is marsh marigold which you can plant in a semi-submerged pot.Īlso known as bog plants. They are also known as emergent pond plants because they are usually rooted in shallow water but emerge and grow vertically into the air like land-based plants. So-called because they grow around the edge of ponds. (A more common example you don’t want is duckweed which can cover your pond and cause water quality issues). Plants that simply float around on the surface with their roots bare to the open water rather than being grounded in soil or mud.Plants that take root underwater – so you’ll need to put them in underwater pots like the submerged ones – but grow up to the surface where their leaves and flowers spread out.They also provide great habitat for wildlife.

Having oxygenating plants will reduce or remove any need for a pump system. This will help stop the pond becoming stagnant and smelly. Fully submerged plants are also called oxygenating pond plants, because all their surfaces are underwater and capable of releasing oxygen into the water.

Pond invisor plants