Adding watercress

[Lisak1]

We had watercress that wintered over in our bog, stream and small pool - it was frozen solid. This past weekend I cleaned out all the dead stuff and realized we have watercress sprouting. The stuff is amazing!

 

[bettasngoldfish]

Anybody have any photos of the watercress in their pond to share?

What's the best way to "plant" it in the water?

 

[SouthernCross]

Here is a picture of my upper waterfall pool which has some watercress that I put in about a month ago. There is also a sprig of it in my filter.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

Nice!

Is it tied together and attached to something in the pond?

 

[RobAmy]

Anybody have any photos of the watercress in their pond to share?

What's the best way to "plant" it in the water?

Anybody have any photos of the watercress in their pond to share?

What's the best way to "plant" it in the water?

Here are a couple in the stream from last year. Hopefully tomorrow I will get some

 

[SouthernCross]

When I brought it at Whole Foods, it had a lot of roots. I just stuck it into the pool between some rocks and pulled off a couple for other spots.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

Wow, That looks nice

Are they potted?

 

[bettasngoldfish]

thanks southerncross, I have never actually seen watercress at the store so I wasnt sure about it having roots.

I like the idea of just holding it down with rocks.

 

[RobAmy]

Wow, That looks nice

Are they potted?

I also bought mine from whole foods, mine are not potted. Just planted right into the gravel of the stream

 

[bettasngoldfish]

thanks

Good to know, Now I just need to check the stores to see who sells it.

 

[SouthernCross]

When I was looking for watercress, I passed it up a couple of times. I was about to give up on looking for it when I asked an employee for help. I thought it was spinach with roots when I saw it the first time. Guess I do not know my greens

 

[mrsclem]

I bought 2 bags from the produce section of our local store. It's bagged in with the fancy lettuce. I always buy the reduced bags- $1. I just tuck mine into the lava rocks I have in my window box planters. I have a spray bar that keeps it wet.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

Well that will narrow my search then. At least I know where to check for it. I probably never noticed it because I wasn't looking for it.

And since you mentioned lava rock...I picked up a bag of red lava rock at Lowes yesterday (thinking I would use it for the pond) My husband was worried it might discolor the pond water. I told him I didn't think so as I hadn't noticed anyone mention it here.

 

[Lisak1]

If you can find it with roots, great. But if you can't, buy it anyway. It roots very quickly once it gets in water. Ours was just stems, no roots. Two days later it was growing.

Watercress will grow into thick matted beds - so thick it can completely block water flow. So you have to keep an eye on it to make sure it's not diverting your waterfalls or streams. I had to yank it out by the handful.

Here's a picture of our waterfall from last summer:

There's watercress planted at the outlet of the bog (the canna lilies are planted at the back of the bog, if that helps - lots of vegetation going on there!), there's more in the stream (top right of the picture) and more in the pool that is growing over the rocks and down the waterfall. The cress in the bog and in the pool is coming back already this year.

Here's a top down view of the bog -

All of that came from two small bunches - no roots, just stems.

These pictures are actually reversed, date wise. The bottom one is from mid-July, the top picture is from the early August. If you look closely in the second picture you can see the two small tomato stems I stuck in the bog - one in the back, one in the front. In the first picture you can see the one in the front has started to grow like crazy! Well, at least I can see them! Like I said LOTS of vegetation going on there! I should take some pictures of my bog today... the irises have started poking their heads out and a bit of water celery is growing, but you can see lots of gravel!

That reminds me... I pulled those canna lilies and saved the bulbs. I need to pot those up and see if I can get them to grow again!

 

[haver79]

Looks very nice Lisak! Do you plant Canna bulbs in pea gravel? Never thought they would grow in water, guess I thought they would rot.