planting pond plants

[jasert39]

My pond is coming along slowly and I would like to be ready to plant some things in there shortly after I am up and running...I think I am going to stay away from lillies this year and try to hardy marginal plants to begin with.  How do I plants these in the pond?  I built a ledge or step for pots to sit on, I saw at Home Depot plastic pond pots with were a firm mesh type material...are they what I need?  Or shouldn't I have holes in them?

What kind of dirt or substrate material should I be using to plant them in?

Any picture out there of this process?

thanks in advance

[Desertponder]

You can use those plastic mesh baskets and use pea gravel in them rather than dirt. The real issue with those is they don't take a great deal of weight, they get brittle in about one season and fast growing plants can bust out of them pretty quickly.
One of our local nurseries sells all the different sizes of the black plastic nursery pots. I go there and buy some of the medium flatter type for marginals. I also use the same black oil drain pans that I use for lilies.

[emm]

I have cattails in a rectangular Rubbermaid storage container that is around 20" X 12" X 8" I think.  I filled the container with heavy clay loam dug out from the construction of the pond and planted the cattails into that.  I covered the top with gravel to keep the soil from being disturbed by the fish poking around in it.  Cattails are heavy feeders and did not do well for me in straight gravel.  Using soil allows me to push slow release pelleted fertilizer into the soil as needed.  The container has also kept them from taking over the pond.

Don't drop the freshly planted container directly into the pond because it can make quite a mess.  To reduce the amount of soil bubbling out of the container and into your pond be sure to slowly lower the container into a tub of water to drive out the air pockets and settle the soil first.

emm

[Johns]

jasert,

The mesh pots are junk.  Best to use pots woth no holes at all.  If all you have are the standard nursery plastic pots with holes in the bottom, use a plastic grocery bag in the bottom to seal the holes.  Lay the bag in the bottom and add clay up till the holes are covered, then add your fertilizer (controlled release allows for one time per year fertilizing). add another inch of clay, then pot your plant.  Add some large gravel to the top and submerge in a bucket before putting in the pond.  This method keeps silt/dirt/mud/clay from  leaching out of your pot.  Additionally, the use of clay (Again, sorry, for those tired of my preaching) seals in the fertilizer, which forms a molecular level bond with the clay, keeping the nutrients out of the water column where it would lead to an algae bloom.

[flyhawk]

i use a rectangular kitchen wash plastic bin that is about 8 inches long, 16 wide, and 5 inches tall

i keep irises and rushes
they are in a mixture of garden soil and black dirt, and grow like crazy
i use burlap and pea gravel over the dirt to keep it from going into the pond and causing an algae bloom

[Jerry]

I used mesh baskets when I first began ponding.  I realized any submerged pot would allow water in and the mesh was just domething to sell us.  Just nonsense.  Johns nailed it

[Desertponder]

Guys, its so much easier and faster to make really thick mud with your soil when you are repotting plants. It has to be really thick, so stiff that you can barely mix it with a little hand shovel. Fill the container with dirt, add a little water, mix, add more water and dirt as needed, mix well and then put your plant in. Top with washed gravel and then lower slowly into the pond. Very little to no escape of soil. No waiting for pots to soak in a bucket or tub.

[Jerry]

 I have had awful messes with gravel so I went to the smooth beach stones or the like.  Much easier to pick up and ratrely spill