In article , Victoria
Clare writes
Lynda Thornton wrote in
:

Hi

I just received one each of these plants by mail order this morning
and wanted to make sure how best to plant them in my water barrel
pond. I understand that the water hawthorn is a deep water marginal,
so should I plant it in a basket and put it straight in at the bottom
of the barrel? The water is probably between 12" and 18" deep, so will
it be OK to go straight in at that depth? Does it need stones in the
bottom to stop it floating about and how will the soil stay in the
basket? I'm a newbie with pond plants as you can guess!


Fill the basket with ordinary garden soil. You can add some stones if
like me you have more stones than soil available!

The basket will create clouds of mud when you lower it in, but that
should settle quickly enough. Make sure you hold the basket with both
hands and lower it right to the bottom. Once it is in, don't try and
take it out again till the plants have got a good hold, or mud will be
everywhere!

12" may be a little shallow - if you are putting a basket underneath it
there will only be a few inches of water on top. My water hawthorn is
in about 2 foot of water to the bottom of the basket, and seems happy.

I've now planted it and there is probably 6" of water above it so I hope
that's enough, there's maybe another inch or so if I completely fill the
barrel to the top.

The water hyssop is a marginal plant and only needs its roots in the
water as far as I understand, so I was thinking of positioning it on
bricks which I have stacked up in the barrel so that it can just stand
near the top of the water - will that work? Will I have to protect it
in the winter?

I don't have a water hyssop, but I find that this is a good approach for
marginals where you otherwise have a steep drop. Don't just put the
hyssop on top of the bricks - it will need a basket or a pot to hold
the soil/compost together and give it something to get its roots into.

Position the edge of this pot or basket a few millimeters under the
water, and then either use white stones around the base of the plant to
distract they eye away from the pot line, or over-fill the pot and mound
the soil up with the plant on top, so that only the mound sticks out.

A few flat stones in the pot will help prevent the mound crumbling
away before your plants have got their roots in to hold it all
together.

Hi Victoria

Yes, I meant I would be putting the hyssop in a basket/pot first, I just
didn't make that clear! I am a bit confused though, because the rather
undetailed blurb that came with the plants said not to get the crown of
the marginal plant get too wet, and I've got it positioned now so that
the top of the pot is just below the waterline, so in that case the
crown of the plant is definitely getting wet. Is this a problem?

Also, I found that a plant from last year, with an arrowhead-shaped leaf
and white flowers on long stems (can't remember the name!), which got
killed by blackbirds digging it up in the rain, had multiplied and left
some bulbs in the barrel which I noticed were sprouting and which I
thought had been dropped by birds! I planted one in a pot I had and lo
and behold an arrowhead leaf started growing! So I've now got a new
plant growing in a pot with the top also just under the waterline, so
will this be suitable conditions?

Lynda