How to plant your pond plants

Planting

As soon as your plants arrive open the package and check the contents are ok. If you can't plant straight away, please sit them in an inch of water on a tray, or if they're oxygenators pop them in a bucket of water. 

Your plants will usually either be "plug plants" or "bare root". They will arrive in plastic bags or a tray, and, if you have ordered a collection, a brief description and instructions as to where to plant them. They will either need to be planted in boggy areas, at the water level, or submerged.

Water lilies can be slightly trickier as they're planted in deep water. We sell them already well established in their baskets, so they need to be carefully lowered into position. 

If your order includes oxygenators they will come crimped together in bunches. This will weigh one end down, allowing them to establish. Just throw them in.

There are three ways to plant your pond plants, which depend on the style and size of pond you have. 

Direct Planting

If you have a natural pond, or one with a butyl or plastic liner buried under a layer of soil, you have a nice growing medium to plant straight into. Our plants are relatively small plug plants or bare root, so you can just push them into the mud, following instructions as to the depth they should be planted at. Simples. 

Using Coir etc.

The other two options are for preformed plastic ponds, or those with exposed liners. For larger ponds like this, consider coir or something like hessian, which can be fashioned into planting pouches. The coir mats cover the liner and themselves provide a growing medium. We sell both mats and rolls - they're a pretty good solution. 

Pond Baskets

For smaller ponds, greater depths and planting individual plants, we sell different sized plastic baskets. These have a fine enough mesh that it allows water through but not the soil to leak out, so they don't need lining.

Instructions For Planting Into Baskets 

You need a relatively low nutrient planting medium, which could be some of the subsoil you've taken from the pond, specialist aquatic soil, or a mix of topsoil and grit or sharp sand:

Fill the basket with this mix, then plant: 

Top with a thin layer of washed gravel to stop soil floating into the water:

Take care when positioning; these bigger baskets are pretty heavy!