Submerged Oxygenator Pond Plants
These are "must have" plants for any water garden. They are the backbone of your ponds ecosystem.
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Submerged oxygenating plants are vital in a water garden.
If you order any plants at all, these are mandatory!
We also suggest you have a colony of Japanese Trapdoor Snails

They absorb impurities from the water. See Nitrogen Cycle They compete with algae for nutrients, thereby reducing algae to keep the water clear. They produce oxygen for the fish to breath. Fish spawn and lay eggs in oxygenating plant cover. Baby fish use these plants for shelter to hide. They should be planted in pockets of gravel, garden dirt, and sand or a mix of these elements. Don't fertilize them. Let them absorb the excess nutrients (nitrates) present in your pond water.

Floating pond plants are essential for a healthy pond. The #1 benefit of these plants is that they absorb excess nutrients from the water. This keeps algae at a minimum because the floating plants eat the nutrients before algae can get them, thereby starving the algae. Algae requires light to grow and floating plants reduce the available light. Just lay them on the water and you are done planting them! The floating roots provide spawning beds and protection for newborn fish. The most powerful of all of the floating plants is the Blue Shell Water Hyacinth.

Hardy bog plants accent the water garden by adding color and shape to the water garden. Our plants are grown in 2" net pots to insure good root development to reduce transplant shock. Our method of growing the bog plants in this way reduces the likelihood of the plant dying back like bare root stock normally would. The size of the plant that we ship varies by variety. We try to ship plants that are semi-mature not just new starts.

Tropical Water Lilies can be the centerpieces for your water garden. Tropical lilies are exotic! They evoke romance and glamour. They are very fragrant and are exquisite as cut flowers. Tropical lilies are treated as annuals and are frost tender. They hold their blossoms high above the water and come in vibrant colors - blue, lavender, pink, green, purple, red, white, yellow and autumn shades. They can have several blooms at a time. The flowers stay open later in the day than the hardy lilies and they also bloom later into the season. Tropical lilies come in day blooming and night blooming varieties. The day blooming varieties open several hours after sunrise and stay open until several hours after sunset. A pond containing both day and night blooming lilies can be enjoyed any hour of the day or night. Some are viviparous (growing plantlets on their leaves) which indicates they are more cold tolerant. The night blooming varieties will open an hour or two before sunset and stay open as late as noon on a cloudy day. Tropical water lilies grow best in a generous amount of heavy garden soil. Even the heaviest clay soils will work fine with the addition of a little sand and fertilizer. Depth should be maintained between 6" to 18" when first transplanted and then once established can be grown from 12" to 30" deep depending on the variety. Lilies are shipped to you bare-root.

NOTE: The lilies we ship are semi-mature. The lily pads (leaves) are about 3-6 inches across depending on the variety of lily. Most of the lilies we ship have active blooms, but they will fall off from transplant shock. You may get some new blooms for the rest of the year, but they will be small as the new root system needs to become established in your pond. Next year your blooms will be large and plentiful due to an established root base.

Black Japanese Trapdoor Snail (Viviparis malleatus) -The Black Japanese Trapdoor snail is the preferred species of water gardeners world-wide. This snail is black in color, body and shell. An adult snail is about 2-2½" long, which is a nice big snail. We ship them when they get close to the size of a quarter.  Trapdoor snails are one of the few larger varieties that can survive the winter in Northern climates. This snail is a great asset in keeping algae under control as they groom your plants, planting pots and watergarden walls. They also cruise the pond bottom and consume decaying matter such as fish food. This is a live bearing snail and gives birth to its young a couple of times a year. This is not an egg laying snail that will overwhelm your pond with 1,000's of young.