At FSA&L we realize that the choices of aquatic plants that water garden owners face is overwhelming at times, and choosing the right plant is often by pure guesswork. With the following list of plants we are trying to eliminate some of the guesswork by providing a list of plants that we know and love, and that are tried and true. This aquatic plant list will make it easier for those not very familiar with aquatic plants and give your chances of success a real boost. We will also include some aquatic plants that we do not recommend for your water garden. Although a plant is easy to find, easy to keep, sold everywhere, and inexpensive it does not necessarily make it a good option for your New Jersey backyard water garden installation. There are many aquatic plants out there that are worth trying that we will not list here, this limited listing is simply meant as a basic guide for those who want to make their choices a bit easier.
The following list of plants we put on the NO-NO list not because they are hard to keep, or hard to find, not because they are ugly or expensive. We put them on this list because they are hard to control, aggressive and invasive, or very messy plants. All of these plants do have their place in water gardening but in our experience they are not well suited to the backyard water garden without good warning.
Cattail (large or wild variety), Lotus, Water Hyacinth, Water Lettuce, Anacharis/Elodea, Hornwort, “Floating” of “Oxygenating” plants, Wild Lily, Duckweed, Spatterdock, Floating Heart, Skunk Cabbage, Plantain, Water Poppy, and wild collected plants.
The quintessential pond plant, rounded floating leaves; colorful blooms. There are hardy, tropical, and night blooming varieties. The hardy lilies, which we recommend, will grow again year after year, while the tropical will die after the first frost. We recommend using cultivars that are found at garden centers and not using the wild lily which can grow very aggressively and take over your pond.
Beautiful tall flowering plant, easy to keep. This plant grows with long blades that resemble immense blades of grass and produce many varieties of different color flowers depending on the type you choose. These are hardy and return every year and can quickly become quite large so do not place too many in your pond. The iris can also be aggressive and grow rapidly not only in your pond but can spread to the outside of your pond as well.
Great plant for the New Jersey water garden. This plant produces shiny green heart shaped leaves with clusters of blue flowers, it can grow tall and looks great grouped with Iris.
Cattail is another pond classic. This is the plant that grows tall like a grass and produces “punks”. There a few varieties of cattail, and the only one we recommend is the dwarf cattail. Dwarf cattail is a great plant, easy to keep, and is not nearly as aggressive and overwhelming as its more popular cousin the full grown cattail. Do not use wild cattail as it will take over your pond and can be very destructive and very difficult to remove from your backyard pond installation once it has become established.
Tall plant, large leaves, big flowers great choice. There are many choices and varieties of Canna, tropical and hardy, big and small, aquatic and terrestrial; a very versatile plant. For our purposes we recommend the hardy Canna, which typically produces a bluish flower and grows back each year. A very manageable plant.
Nice plant that provides good surface cover. This plant has green feathery foliage that produces red tips in the fall. The foliage floats on top of the water and is very easy to propagate by simply picking some of the growth and sticking into a bit of gravel and the cutting should do quite well. Parrotfeather can send some of its growth over the rockwork as well making this a good plant to soften the edges of a pond.
Shallow water mounding plant with beautiful small blue flowers and mounds of leaves. Great to use in streams or pond edge.
A groundcover type of plant that does just as well out of the water as in. This plant is good for the edges of the pond and is another great plant for softening edges.
