Making a Pond - Stocking Your Pond - Plants

The best time to put plants into the pond is April or early May. Plant straight into the layer of soil. Choose native species. Firstly you will need submerged 'oxygenators'. You can buy these from garden centres but it is far cheaper to beg some from another pond owner (don't take any from a wild pond). Just two or three small clumps, anchored down with a half-brick, will soon start growing well. Milfoil and water starwort are good native 'oxygenators'; try to avoid Canadian pondweed - it grows like wildfire and quickly takes over a pond!

Other plants to introduce are those which have their roots in the bottom and their leaves and flowers floating on the surface e.g. water lilies.

In the shallows, emergents may be grown in the different depths; these are valuable for sheltering wildlife as well as looking attractive.

Below are some tables of native plants suitable for a garden pond:-

Submerged Aquatic Plants

These provide oxygen and shelter for pond animals

Spiked water milfoil Myriophyllum spicatum

Hornwort Ceratophyllum demersum

Curled pondweed Potamogeton crispus

Water starwort Callitriche Spp

Bottom - Rooted & Floating-Leaved Plants

White water lily Nymphaea alba

Yellow water lily Nymphaea lutea

Fringed water lily Nymphoides peltata

Broad-leaved pond weed Potamogeton natans

Amphibious bistort Polygonum amphibium

Water crowfoot Ranunculus aquatilis
(only suitable for large ponds)

Emergent Plants - Deeper Water

These are bottom-rooted; the leaves & flower stems grow above the water surface

Bog bean Menyanthes trifoliata

Flowering rush Butomus umbellatus

Burr reed Spargahium erectum

Lesser reedmace Typha latifolia

Emergent Plants - Marsh Zone

These can cope with water up to about 150 mm deep

Yellow iris ....... Iris pseudacorus

Water mint Mentha aquatica

Water plantain Alisma plantago - aquatica

Brooklime Veronica beccabunga

Water forget-me-not Myosotis scorpioides

Lesser spearwort Ranunculus flammula

Mud sedge. Carex limosa

Marsh Plants - Bankside Zone

These like damp places but are not true water plants

Codlins and cream or Hairy willowherb Epilobium hirsutum

Marsh marigold Caltha palustris

Marsh woundwort Stachys palustris

Bugle Ajuga reptans

Creeping jenny Lysimahia nummularia

Purple loosestrife Lythrum salicaria

Meadowsweet Filipendula ulmaria

Salad burnet Sanguisorba minor

Ragged robin Lychnis flos-cuculi

Meadow buttercup Ranunculus acris

Hemp agrimony Eupatorium cannabinum