Planting the bank

Planting the Bank

In this lesson, we'll discuss the best time to plant up a pond and how to prepare your pond for planting. I'll also share some practical tips on how to plant up the banks. These form the outermost planting layer in your pond, where conditions are more terrestrial than aquatic, and provide an ideal habitat for plants that like their roots to stay moist.

Waiting for the Right Time to Plant

• We needed to do this project in the dry part of the year to make it easier to use diggers.
• We thus made the pond in August, it filled up in early September, and then I could seed the margins.
• That gave the wildflower a whole autumn to germinate, so that by winter the soil was protected again, and in spring we had a green halo surrounding the pond.

Now in May, both the soil and the water have warmed up enough for aquatic plants to establish, so I'm able to start planting the marginal shelves. We've also just had some rain, so it's perfect for planting.

• Suppliers often won't sell aquatic plants until late spring, when they know they'll grow well.

Preparing to Plant

Before planting, I've broadly grouped the plants by habitat. For example, one group is plants for the bank and for going down into the water.

Some plants in this group include:

• Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) – a late-flowering perennial with purple flower spikes that are terrific for butterflies.
• This is going to go on the higher ground – remember the first metre or so of bank wicks water up from the pond, so there will be lovely damp, puddly conditions here.
• Water avens (Geum rivale) comes next. This likes a bit more water, so I'm putting it right on the water's edge where it will always have its feet in the damp.
• Yellow flag (Iris pseudocorus) likes the wettest conditions of all, so that will go in the water itself.

I'm only laying out the plants in small sections at a time because I don't want the plants to dry out. They've been sitting in water waiting, and I want to get them in quickly so they will stay cool and moist.

The Planting Process

Now it's one step at a time, going around the pond, finding places for the plants and then putting them in.

• When I dug the pond, I made sure all the soil around the edge is subsoil and not rich topsoil. I want to keep the fertility low so we don't get masses of growth that could stop us seeing into the water.
• Planting into subsoil will check the growth, but as there's lots of moisture, they will still grow.
• The little plugs of soil I'm taking out have my seed mix in, so I'm saving them to plug into other areas around the pond that are looking a bit thin.

The loosestrife is going higher up on the banks, while the water avens will go just above the water's edge, where its neck can be kept nice and dry but its feet will always be within reach of the water.

• Once I've put these in, I just repack mud around the base to hold them into the bank.

The flag irises are adaptable – they can grow on the banks where their feet are just damp, but they can also grow quite deep in the water.

• I just push these into the mud in the shallows so their crowns are just below the surface.
• They will creep up the banks, and go down as far as they can, though no deeper than about 22 cm.

I've already pushed my water mint (Mentha aquatica), which I took as cuttings, into the mud in the same way. This is a great plant with pretty flowers that smell delicious, as well as being wildlife magnets.

This plant cover will massively help biodiversity, so this pond will start coming to life very quickly now.

The Alchemy of a Pond

All gardening is an evolution, and this is especially so with a pond. Mine is going through an incredible alchemy that began when we started filling it with water. Very quickly, wildlife began to appear, and more and more followed until already, even before I'd planted anything, there was a whole host of new life.

It's well worth taking the time to think through the fundamentals of your pond. I spent a long time working out exactly where it would go, how it would sit in the hollow, and fine-tuning the plants to go in it. However, a pond will always evolve, and I will add and subtract to it as it develops. I've set mine up with what I believe to be the right conditions (depth, marginal shelves, planting) that will allow it to develop its own ecology, but ultimately, we just have to see where it goes.

Plant Directory

Lythrum salicaria

Geum rivale

Iris pseudocorus

Mentha aquatica