Feel free to contact us. Advice is always FREE!
918-691-2162 or Glenn@DoughtyWatergarden.com

Floating Gardens

Floating watergarden planters offer another way to add water loving plants to your pond that

1)       look good

2)       are out of reach of larger fish

3)       provide shelter and shade for small fish

4)       help clean the water by removing silt and nutrients

5)       and control the growth of invasive plants

If you grow Water Hyacinth and Water Lettuce but have KOI that like to eat them or just tear them up, try growing them in a plastic laundry basket from Wal-Mart or Dollar General. The baskets float with the top rim at water level and the big fish can only eat the roots that grow thru the sides of the basket. This also keeps the plants where you want them.

To turn the basket into a hydroponic planter cut a circle to fit inside the basket out of ¾ to 1 inch Styrofoam. Cut or drill small holes that will let the roots of the plants hang down onto the pond. The plants should be well started and can be held in place with toothpicks. The plant roots will collect silt and nutrients from the water. Another good thing is that the dirtier the pond the better they grow.

You can grow edible and ornamental plants hydroponicly. Some edibles are

1)       salad crops like lettuce, spinach, and Swiss chard

2)       herbs like mint, and water cress

3)       you can grow tomatoes and cucumbers but they take a lot of room and support.

Some ornamentals include day lilies, caladiums, peace lily, snowflake, water clover, and water veronica.

Willow trees do well this way and are great water cleaners. You can mix regular willow with weeping, corkscrew, yellow bark, pussy willow for a good color and texture display. Red and yellow bark dogwood are also good water plants. Willow furniture makers grow long and straight willow whips on floating islands.

All these plants help clean the water, provide shelter and shade for small fish and snails. Each floating island becomes a small ecosystem that is beneficial to the pond and is low maintenance for the pond owner.

If you decide to build a floating garden, try all kinds of unusual plants and let me know about your successes and failures.

Feel free to e-mail any further questions. Remember advice is always free!

Glenn