Pond plants that are growing nicely

[Sunshine]

Your plants are doing very well. Looking good ...

 

[taherrmann4]

I am attaching some pics of my water lettuce and water hyacinth as I am a bit perplexed why the difference in growth.

In the first pic this is the hyacinth and the lettuce in the big part of the pond where it is about 2' deep and gets a about 8 hours of sunlight. You can see that the growth is dismal, the leaves on the lettuce are yellow, the hyacinths aren't very tall, all they do is produce sisters at an even slower pace. Most of these have come from the other areas in my creek and waterfall b/c they are growing so quickly.

The second pic is my lettuce in the creek that i stuck one piece in there about 6 weeks ago and has really done well gets sun most of the day has good water movement as it is in the creek.

The third and fourth pic are in the other creek, they are both doing very well and this is one of the areas that I have to thin out every so often. The hyacinth get full sun most of the day however the lettuce are shaded quite a bit.

The last pic is the hyacinth in my waterfall area where there is a small pool about 6-8" deep, gets full sun and has fairly quick moving water. These have done the best by far they are tall about 18" and grow prolifically one is even grown over the waterfall into the big pond.

So my conclusion is that the good growth has something to do with the water movement and nutrients that the ones in the creek and falls are getting vs the ones that are in the pond. My fish do not bother the roots on any of the plants in the pond, they do nibble on some of the hyacinth but I don't think this is the reason for the lack of growth as there are a lot in the pond that show absolutely no signs of nibbling on the leaves or the roots. I am curious if other people have seem similar results?

 

[j.w]

tmann my water lettuce looks like that too and has from when I first got it. I have it in non-moving water. I don't have a stream so can't do a test on that but I am interested to find out why also. I tried to put a few near my waterfall but the waterfall just pushes them all into the non-moving areas where they sit and turn yellow.

 

[HARO]

Logically, since the water in the pond is being circulated, all the plants should be exposed to the same water and the same nutrients. Are the yellowing plants in deeper water than the ones that are flourishing? This seems to be the case. In my own experience, plants whose roots can reach the bottom of the pond will consistently do better than those that can't. It seems that these plants do take some nourishment from any mulm at the bottom. When I used them in a home-made vegetative filter one year I started with three plants and wound up tossing four wheelbarrow loads on the compost pile. Oh, yes, I'm talking about hyacinths here, I've never had much luck with water lettuce. John

 

[taherrmann4]

John that makes sense. I did have an oil pan in the pond that was about 8" below the surface with kitty litter in it and had water lettuce floating over that and quite a few of the roots were touching the litter but were still not doing anything different than the others in the pond. Might have been too deep still or the litter may do nothing for them. I will collect some muck from the bottom next spring and put into an oil pan then place that about 4" below the surface and float some lettuce and hyacinth over them to see what happens. Another reason that I think you may be right John is that I gave my brother some of mine and his are doing much better and they are in a shallower area of about 6" but does have really good water movement also.

 

[HARO]

My veggie filter was a used laundry tub with a layer of lava stone; water was fed to the top, with the cleaned water rising up through a pipe and feeding a small waterfall. There was about 5" of space over the stone, and this was totally filled with mulm, The plant roots, when I cleaned it at the end of the season, were throughout the stone, even growing right into it. Everything came out in one big cube! But it did wonders for water quality, and there was absolutely no algae! It made me a believer in veggie and bog filters. John

 

[addy1]

The hyacinths I have in my small ponds, are a lot greener, blooms more, grew bigger than the hyacinth in the large pond. There is minimal water movement, the stream is on a timer, the water does get warmer. Last time I checked the roots were not to the bottom of that pond yet.

My veggie filter was a used laundry tub with a layer of lava stone; water was fed to the top, with the cleaned water rising up through a pipe and feeding a small waterfall. There was about 5" of space over the stone, and this was totally filled with mulm, The plant roots, when I cleaned it at the end of the season, were throughout the stone, even growing right into it. Everything came out in one big cube! But it did wonders for water quality, and there was absolutely no algae! It made me a believer in veggie and bog filters. John

My bog has kept my pond algae free, love that sucker. The little ponds do not have algae, but full of plants.

 

[HARO]

Yes, a bog of some sort is definitely in my plans for next spring, I just don't know whether to make it a lotus bog or a wild-type. There is a peat bog about a mile from our house, and it's a great source for cotton grass, ladyslippers, and a variety of others. Tempting! John

 

[addy1]

umm nice, go for it! The plants grow wonderfully, I have tads, little frogs, water bugs living in the bog, even found one fry.