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Native Pond Plants

ClaringtonClarington Posts: 4,949

Afternoon all.

My pond (2.6 metre x 1.8 metres x 61cm at its deepest) as you well know is now installed and the pump is running happily. I was told by the lovely people who supplied the pond (pump, and my two fish who they even looked after over the winter til the pond was installed - what service!) That plants would start to be available from March onwards.

I'm trying to come up with native plant ideas that will add colour and height to the pond. Does anyone have any suggestions? We don't have much of a design style in the garden so the plants don't need to conform to any modern / classic styles! image

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  • Hi Clarington, puddleplants.co.uk have a whole section of native marginals and also native plants especially attractive to wildlife.

  • Hi Clarington. If you go on eBay and do a search for 'pond plants', you will get loads of specialist sellers (I think Puddleplants are on there), lots of pictures for you to browse as well.

    Colour and height? For colour you can't beat Marsh Marigold, but they are low bushy plants. Water forget me nots are a lovely light blue which set off beautifully against the yellow of the marsh marigold and flower most of the season.

    For height, I love purple loosestrife and Lysimachia (yellow loosestrife) - the veriagated lysimachia is really lovely and is about 15" tall - flowers for a long time. Iris in lots of colours add height also, although I have found them to be temperamental.

    I found a good site when I was planting up here:

    http://www.pond-life.me.uk/plants/index.php

    The site doesn't sell plants but it is full of good photos, advice and descriptions, and all the plants are categorized into bog, marginal, deep water and floating plants.

    I have found that quite a few plants cross over between bog and marginal (i.e they will survive in muddy soil and in water up to about 5" or so).

    Good luck with it - I love my pond and envy you planting up for the first time.image

     

  • Jim MacdJim Macd Posts: 750

     

    Some great native marginals include Flag Iris, Purple Loosestrife, Marsh Marigold, Marsh Orchids, Meadow Sweet. You can get plugs for these and more from: Naturescape or http://www.wildflowers.co.uk/ or seed from Emorsgate Seed.

     

    Good luck.

  • ClaringtonClarington Posts: 4,949

    Oh thank you ever so!!

  • ClaringtonClarington Posts: 4,949

    Now I'm confused. I thought marginal just meant it lived on the edge of the pond where it was shallow but they say soil "moist". I think in the pond would be soil "saturated" ?!

  • I'm confused about Lobelia 'Queen Victoria' as I've seen it described as not liking to be in badly drained soil in the winter but it's also sold as a pond marginal and Charlie Dimmock planted it in the shallow edge of a pond on her garden revival segment.

  • Clarington, marginal plants live in the pond in shallow water - if you have made a 'shelf' in your pond, marginals sit on that shelf. Plants that live in any moist soil at the side of the pond are called bog plants. Just to confuse the issue further (!!) some plants are happy as either marginals or bog plants.

    Ashleigh,  Lobelia Queen Victoria can be either a bog or a marginal pond plant - in fact it is one of the plants that Illustrates what I have said to Clarington. I have tried growing Victoria in a herbaceous border and it failed (but that may have been just something I did to itimage.)

    I have always been a Charlie Dimmock fan, but the thing that really confused and  annoyed me about Charlie's pond revival is that she spent most of the segment encouraging us to plant native pond plants but when it came to planting her own pond she stuck in lots of non natives because she wanted some 'colour'. Queen Victoria, as a case in point, comes from the Americas.

  • WelshonionWelshonion Posts: 3,114

    Lobelia Queen Victoria is slug food!!  You will have to protect it.  But you will be amazed how determined the critters are to get at it!

    Lovely plant, mind.

  • ClaringtonClarington Posts: 4,949

    Oh dear. Who  thought it would be quite so complicated!  Too much for my fluffy brain this morning image

  • ClaringtonClarington Posts: 4,949

    This is hard work! I'm quite tempted by:

    • Typha minma (don't know if its native or not)
    • Common Cotton grass (native)
    • Blue/Purple Iris (definitely not native but a beautiful colour)
    • Greater pond sedge (native & good for wildlife)
    • Water mint (native & good for pollinators)
    • Fringe lily (native & will provide some much needed shelter for the fish)
    • Hair grass (native)
    • Arrowhead native (native)

    Oh dear this could get expensive. I just hope the pond is big enough!! image

     

    (This must be what girly girls feel like when clothes shopping!!)

     

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