Container Water Gardens

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My finished container water garden.

Carol Bale's Fun Learning Experience
(Written by Carol)

For a couple of years now, I've been thinking of doing something with water gardening. I really don't want a pond in my yard and I have a patio fountain so making a container water garden was the perfect solution. And having never done one before I was curious about the plants and what sort of maintenance it would need.

I would encourage you all to read the Van Bloem Gardens Container Water Garden article in our Wenke Wisdom section. Creating a container water garden is truly as easy as outlined in the article and this year the retail store is carrying a wider selection of containers and plants for water gardening.

I bought a burgundy plastic container to complement the pattern of my patio umbrella and swing. (You know coordinating looks is part of the fun.) You'll want a container without holes in the bottom. If you have a container with holes that you want to use, plug the hole with either cork or other water proof material.

While shopping for the water plants I was amazed at the selection and variety of water plants to choose from. I found a water plant called Canna Pink Sunburst with burgundy in the leaves. (How cool is that for my color coordinating efforts.) Similar to patio pots, I wanted to pick plants for height, color, texture and trailing effects.

I used the Canna for height, Juncus for textural variety and the Lysimachia for a trailing effect. My pot was a little deep for the level of water I needed for these plants. You'll see in the Van Bloem article that the bottoms of water plants can be submerged anywhere from 2-6 inches below the water's surface. My plants only need 2-3 inches of submersion so I took an empty plastic pot and turned it upside down inside of my burgundy container and sat the water plants on the upside down pot. The plants were then 3-4 inches below the rim of my burgundy container.

I then filled my container with water and set it in full sun. That's it, no kidding. The plants flourished all summer and I deadheaded to keep the plants looking tidy and to encourage new growth. I also put half of a mosquito donut in my container in late June and the other half in late August and I didn't have any mosquito issues. I added new water to my container every few days depending on how much had evaporated.

Come in and take a look at the water plants and containers that are available. You, like me, might find a new gardening project that is easy to do, easy to maintain and adds interest to any patio setting.