Pond Plants Soil!
by Dick Schuck
You don’t need pond plants soil to grow water plants but you do need to provide the necessary nutrients.
The main function of aquatic soil is to hold the plants in place and provide trace elements as well as some nutrients. There are a number of commercial pond plants soil mixes sold.
The best looking water lilies I’ve ever seen were growing at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA.
These plants were grown in good loamy top soil which was composted in the field by stacking 6” thick strips of top soil and sod after grass was shaved off. The small amount of grass stubble added fiber and a little humus.
Patrick Nutt, Assistant Director of Horticulture at Longwood, once remarked that: “If it’ll grow grass, it’ll grow water lilies”.
The pond plants soil is defined as loam and the analysis of the Longwood soil Pat described as: 20% clay, 40% sand and 40% silt.
At M-A-N we use locally available screened topsoil. Depending on the topsoil in your area you may need to add a little humus (peat) and ground limestone (calcium carbonate).
The clay in the pond plants soil will help bind nutrients in a form usable by plants. Peat does the same as clay but also serves as a slow form of organic fertilizer.
The ground limestone is needed to ‘sweeten’ soil that is too acid or sour. A pH test of the soil will determine its acidity. A sprinkling of ground limestone per gallon of soil is usually sufficient.
We also have been using calcium enriched clay products, (Turface), that grow pond and aquarium plants very well.
Many of the plants grown at M-A-N are grown hydroponically, i.e. without the pond plants soil, where the necessary nutrients are provided in water soluble form directly to the plant. The plants are grown in Oasis foam cubes and/or mum mix (a mixture of peat and bark).
We are presently growing some lilies and many of our marginal plants in this manner. Our normal procedure is to transfer these hydroponically grown plants to pots a few weeks prior to delivery to our customers. This affords the plants ample time to root out in the soil environment.
The key to growing good looking aquatic plants is good top soil, proper fertilization and sufficient pot size or growing room.
In the case of the fabulous plants at Longwood, large containers are used exclusively. During the growing season, weekly to bi-weekly fertilization is performed with slow release fertilizer tablets.
Footnote:
One thing that encourages plant growth, having nothing to do with soil, is moving water. The water provides a constant stream of nutrients to the plant root, encouraging the plants to grow many times bigger and greener than plants grown in still water.
A simple experiment will demonstrate the great power of the hydroponics system is to take nutrients from pond water as well as to prove that while soil is important it’s not always necessary.
Place a bare root yellow iris, or any other plant, in an overflow tank next to your pond. Next, place the same plant, potted traditionally, in the pond. Circulate water from the pond through the overflow tank using a small water pump.
In a few short weeks you’ll notice that the plant in the tank is many times bigger and greener than the counterpart in the pond.
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