Variety is what truly makes a water garden great. There are six groups or categories of aquatic plants, all serving a different function in your water garden. Some plants are better at keeping the pond’s chemistry in balance, others, because their root systems grow at greater depths, are able to consume nutrients that other plants can’t, and others provide shade and cover for the fish, but don’t consume many nutrients. This is why it’s a good idea to select a wide assortment of plants.

Aquatic plants can be broken down into six basic groupings:

Water lilies – Hardy and Tropical

Lotus

Marginal Plants

Floating-Leaved Plants

Floating Plants

Submerged Plants

Hardy Water Lilies

Hardy water lilies have lightly-scented 2 to 7" diameter flowers usually float on the water’s surface and bloom during the day. They are available in red, pink, yellow, white, and "changeable" which starts off as yellow, but can change into a reddish-yellow. The blooms last 3 to 5 days.

Their almost round green or maroon floating leaves ... the familiar "lilypad" provides shade and shelter to the fish in your pond. They come in red, pink, yellow, white, and "changeable" which starts off as yellow, but can change into a reddish-yellow over the 3 to 5 day blooming period of each flower.

They are cold-hardy and have the ability to withstand winters in the coldest parts of North America, and prefer to grow in water that is 12 to 30" deep.

 Tropical Water Lilies

Tropical water lilies are larger, showier, and much more fragrant than their hardy cousins, but are not hardy enough to withstand winters in the colder areas of North America . They are extremely heavy feeders and should be fertilized often.

They are available in both day and night-blooming varieties, and their flowers sit 6 to 12" above the waters’ surface. Day-blooming water lilies come in brilliant hues of blue and violet, in addition to white, yellow, pink, and sunset. Night-blooming varieties are limited to white and shades of red or pink.

Lotus

Lotuses are one of the most impressive aquatic plants in the world. Bearing flowers as large as 13" on 4 to 6’ stems, lotuses have huge, elevated leaves measuring up to 30" in diameter. They are winter-hardy in most of North America .

Flower colors are limited to white, yellow, and various shades of pink. They bloom in the summer and go dormant in the winter. Because lotuses grow very large, very quickly, they are heavy feeders and should be heavily fertilized in the spring, and then again at a lower rate at regular intervals throughout the growing season.

 Marginal Aquatics

Marginal plants are the largest grouping of aquatic plants, and comprise both hardy and non-hardy species. They are called "marginals" because they are usually found growing in the "margins" or shallow-water areas of lakes, streams, swamps, and rivers. They are typically upright plants and are grown either for flowers or foliage. Some familiar examples of marginal plants would be iris, pickerel rush, sweet flag, canna, umbrella palm, and bulrush. Marginal plants like water depths as little as 2" deep, and as much as 12" deep.

 Floating-leaved Aquatics

Floating leaved plants are a loose and informal grouping of plants that have only two things in common – they have floating leaves like water lilies and possess some type of flower.

They span both hardy and tropical varieties, and include plants such as water hawthorn, water snowflake, spatterdock, frogbit, and water shield. Most floating-leaved plants are grown in 12 to 18" of water and will do well with monthly fertilization.

 Free-floating Plants

Floating plants are plants that float on the water and take up nutrients from the water by a conventional root system. The most obvious examples are water hyacinth and water lettuce. Others are fairy moss, duckweed, and salvinia.

Submerged Aquatic Plants

Submerged plants are often referred to as "oxygenators," although their primary function is to help provide clear water by competing for free nutrients in the pond, thereby "starving" algae.

This method is practiced exclusively in traditional, bare-liner ponds. Because the bacteria that lives in a gravel-bottomed pond takes care of the free nutrients that cause algae growth, submerged aquatics are seldom encountered in gravel-bottomed ponds.

These are the traditional weighted "bunch plants" sold in aquarium stores. Anacharis, cabomba, and hornwort would be familiar examples. Weighted, submerged plants are "planted" in the pond by tossing them in at the recommended stocking rate of one bunch per square foot.

There are some folks who have a green thumb and with it, a unique ability to make plants grow. And there are others who lack that green thumb and who ruin almost any plant they come in contact with. The great thing about aquatic plants is almost everyone has a green thumb because the pond is such a user friendly environment for them to grow in.