Pond Plants

Over 300 attractive full-color photographs and drawings make Pond Plants an absolutely indispensable guide for creative pond keepers. Authors Derek Lambert, Graham Quick, and Philip Swindells describe the many uses of pond plants, adding color, beauty, and utility to gardens, ponds, and aquariums. The authors begin by recommending readers draft a planting plan for the four distinct areas of a pond, which they define as the pond surround, bog garden area, marginal shelves, and deep water area. Drawings assist readers to envision the planting zones of a pond and to develop a successful, workable planting strategy. The book includes practical advice on purchasing plants, using planting baskets, feeding plants, using oxygenating plants and floating plants, potting marginals and water lilies, handling pests and diseases, and planting deep water aquatics and a bog garden. A chapter on propagating plants offers specific guidelines for oxygenators, irises, marginals, water lilies and other aquatic plants.

Plant planning can be based on a color theme, and the guide illustrates ponds filled with purple, white, yellow, and pink flowers and plants. The authors also offer care advice for the four seasons of the year, including the goals and essential tasks for spring through winter.

The second half of the book is devoted to popular pond plants, and the authors recommend favorite plants by category, including oxygenating plants, floating plants, marginal plants, water lilies (pygmy, small, large, and tropical), deep water aquatics, and bog garden plants. Readers will be inspired by the many exceptional, eye-catching plants described in this section, such as hornwort and Canadian pondweed (oxygenators), water soldier and water hyacinth (floaters), arum lily, Houttuynia cordata, and yellow skunk cabbage (marginals), dozens of water lilies, and many more!