Floating Plants: the plants that sit on the water surface with roots free. Choosing and planting water plants - Part 3

A QUICK GUIDE TO FLOATING PLANTS FOR PONDS IN THE UK

They are perhaps not quite as important as the other vegetative ingredients to a pond and some varieties can be a scourge particularly in slightly warmer climes than Britain. But if your lilies are slow to getLemna minor - duckweed their heads up and get moving, they provide invaluable pool cover and prove exceptionally efficient competition to algae.

Definitely beware of Duck Weed (Lemna minor) though and in fact all the Duck weed family. It has in its family the world's smallest flowering plant and and this is Wolffia arrhiza (Rootless Duckweed) really needs to be seen under a microscope before the plant can be really seen to in fact be of the arum family. It manifests itself as litle more than a green scum.

There is an Ivy leafed Duckweed that I find tolerable because it is so easy to fish out this is Lemna trisulca.

Fairy Moss, Azolla caroliniana: It turns pinkish or red as the days drawn in towards winter.
Fairy Moss or Azolla filiculoides, or Azolla caroliniana is also regarded by some as a bane, but it has a spectacular colour in the colder months and is often polished off by icy weather. Fish like to eat it too and so it is not the universal problem that Duck Weed is once it gets into your water garden.
Less rampant but frost tender are Water Hyacinth (Eichornia crassipes) and Water lettuce (Pistia stratiotes), hated in South Africa and the USA for clogging up dams and waterways These need to be over-wintered indoors.

Slavinia molesta,(syn. S. rotundifolia, S. minima or called water velvet or cats tongue is a tenderfloating plant prohibited in the milder US States under Federal Law. It has fuzzy round halfinch long leaves that are strung together in long chains, just right fopr clogging waterways. However it needs a minimum water temperature of 45F.

Trapa natans (Water Chestnut) only over-winters if it sets seed and then allowed to germinate the following spring. Although this is meant to be native of Europe it is so rare that it is probably extict n the wild, so please grow it if you find it. There is a Chinese version Trapa bicornis with two horned fruits that is used for food and there it is called Ling. The French know it as 'Water Chestnut' and has been used to make bread in ancient Thrace and soup in Japan. Culpepper recommended it for everything from sore throats and any inflammations and bites for treating bitings of venomous beasts'. They contian a nut the size of a large hazel nut or filbert which just needs to be thrown into the water to germinate.

Unimpeachable are the two native floating plants Frogbit (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae) and Water Soldier (Stratiotes aloides - Stratiotes is Greek for 'soldier' and the aloides refers to theStratiotes aloides - Water Soldier Aloe type foliage, that is why they are often refered to as floating pineapples). They survive the winter by sinking to the bottom of the pond. The frogbit looks like a white miniature pygmy lily and sinks to the bottom as small nut-like-food-store that is easily missed if there is a very late season clear out. The Water Soldier looks like the top of a pineapple plant. It is now a rare plant in the wild, only to be found in Norfolk.

Planting them is just a matter of throwing them in. Dont be disappointed if they sink to the bottom. They will re-emerge when they recover. Allow one floating plant for every 10 sqft of pool surface.