Garden Heights features Water Plants and Hot Summer Annuls

Plants for your Water Features

Pickeral Weed
The Pickerel Rush, also known as Pickerel Weed, Pickerelweed, and Wampee, is named after the Italian botanist, Giulio Pondeteria. Shiny, green, spear-shaped foliage with distinctive swirling send up spikes of soft blue flowers, reaching 18 to 24" tall, or slightly more. The flower spikes grow from leaf bracts at the top of stems. This marginal plant is suitable for ponds and tubs. It flowers from June-September. The Pickeral Weed will grow in sun to partial shade.

Hardy Pink Water Lily
Water Lilies will provide your pond with color all summer long for many years. We carry winter hardy varieties to -30 degrees and can remain in ponds during the winter providing the water does not freeze to the level of the plant. They bloom from June to September and require a water depth of 18-24". Once this pink lily starts to bloom, it doesn't stop. Selected because it usually blooms with several flowers at one time. Slightly fragrant.

White Calla Lily
Water Calla is hardy to zone 10. In lesser zones simply remove them from the pond and place them in a sunny window in a saucer kept filled with water. Given enough light and cooler home temperatures they will bloom most of the winter indoors too. The glossy leaves are arrowhead-shaped. Water Calla is an ideal background plant for a pond or tub garden. The large white blooms are truly magnificent. The plant grows about 2’ tall and the blooms rise up near or above he top of the foliage. They need to be placed in the pond so that there is no more than 2 to 3 inches of water over the top of the pot.

Floating Water Hyacinth
Large clusters of large lavender flowers are held above the plant, which consists of a bunch of rounded leaves floating on hugely inflated stems. The plants float on the water's surface and are ballasted by large masses of black and purple roots. These roots are what make this species such a valuable asset in the cleaning of water. It produces beautiful flowers, filters water like no other plant, makes an exccellent spawning medium for Koi, and makes great compost.

Because the Water Hyacinth has a tropical nature, it will require heat and full sun to thrive and flower. Yellowish leaves are a sign of insufficient nutrients in the water; move plants with yellowing leaving to an alternate area and add plant food to their water, rotating with plants left in the pond. A vigorous reproducer, it can quickly take over the water garden. Remove excess plants to help prevent this from happening.

Floating Water Lettuce
Water Lettuce has velvety foliage that spreads like strawberry plants across the surface; they may produce inconspicuous white flowers. The bright green leaves are deeply veined and resemble heads of floating lettuce; they grow to lengths of up to 10 inches and up to 4 inches wide.

Water Lettuce helps to provide shade for the pond and fish, as well as a safe haven and spawning area the fish. Helps oxygenate and clarify the water and will use the extra organic nutrients in the pond, thereby reducing algae production. Reaches height of 6-10".

Water Lettuce seems to prefer some shade in warmer climates, but is also susceptible to frost, and even a brief exposure frigid temperatures produces scalded leaves that quickly turn to rotting areas. Zones 9-11.