with native plants
As I’ve mentioned before, there are a variety of ponds in our garden, and I wanted to give the feed bowl pond a bit of a makeover. It currently has some pond weed and a broken flowerpot to provide some shelter, as well as a large stone for things to hide on or under. It really needed some plants though, and although I wanted a water lily, it’s a bit too shallow and there’s only one native variety and they seem to be quite scarce at this time of year. I’m not sure if that’s a dormancy/availability thing or they’ve all sold out, but in any case, I couldn’t find one. I also wanted an oxygenating plant of some description.
I had to do some chopping and changing as I wanted to get the plants from a local supplier but there didn’t seem to be one in the county. Failing that, I definitely wanted British-grown native plants, so I widened my search. Online was the usual thing of not being able to find everything from one supplier, and there being a mixture of bare-rooted and potted plants, or a bewildering array and arranged in a rather confusing manner. I eventually ended up at Puddleplants which seemed to tick the boxes, and my parcel arrived today. It was well-packaged and everything was safely stored and in good condition.
I had ordered two 2 litre pots, 2 kilo packs of aquatic soil, a small bag of gravel and the bare-root plants: Mare’s Tail Hippuris vulgaris, a native oxygenator, and Fringe Lily Nymphoides peltata which is a sort of water lily dupe that will have flat leaves and yellow flowers but is native and much less fussy. In fact, it can become invasive but in my tiny pond I don’t think it’ll have much chance, and if I get too much I will be able to share it around with my neighbours…or make more ponds. I have a feeling that pond creation might tap into the same mindset I had when I kept poultry; I managed to stop short of needing a DEFRA licence but only just.
I potted up the plants and topped them with gravel. I had a bit of soil left over so I took off a bit of the Mare’s Tail and made a tiny pot for a flowerpot pond. I then put them in their new home:
I’ll have to see how they get on but they look really good quality and both species are tolerant of all sort of depths and light conditions. I’ll have to keep them topped up but the gutter leaks a bit onto the big pond, and we have two water butts so I’ll be able to maintain the levels. I’ve put some split logs so that creatures have the chance to climb in and out, and to make a sort of pond-complex situation.
