Learn some few water planting tips for your garden pond and planting

1. Allow at least one plant for every 0.5sq m (5 sqft). Plant them in aquatic baskets and place them in groups of the same variety in larger pools. In smaller pools, I am not sure that having more than one species in one basket works, certainly not in the long run. One of them always seems to win out over all the others.

Placing the planting baskets for the marginals at water level; in this pond bricks were needed under the baskets to support them at the right level.

Reed mace, Typha latifolia, January with its cats-tails about to burst with up to 750,000 seeds per seed head. Along with its phenomenal root growth, this makes it a very dangerous plant to have in a small pond.

Although a useful plant for cleaning polluted water, given a free rein Phragmites australis is liable to take over. Here it is taking over Suffolk having already taken over Norfolk and thus acquiring one of its common names, Norfolk reed. ;

2. Beware of what of some even familiar old favourites; if there were ever any hooligans in the plant world then a good number of them would be found amongst the plants often sold as marginal plants. For owners of smaller pools, be particularly cautious in choosing some of the larger and indigenous marginal plants like Typha (Reed Mace), Phragmites australis (Norfolk Reed) and Scirpus (Bulrush). They are definitely questionable bedfellows. But you will find that even these fast rooting, shooting pond fillers, their misbehaviour is moderated by a good cross section of other more ponderous representatives. But there is an alternative of using varieties that are smaller and slower growing versions of their indigenous cousins.

Scirpus lacustris ssp. Tabernaemontani Zebrinus is a long name for a slow growing and reserved plant whose more rampant cousin, Scirpus lacustris, the bulrush, is liable to take over.

Typha minima, the conservative cousin of the native redd mace.

3. Block plant large pools or ponds. Early spring colour and the beauty of reflections come part and parcel with a certain amount of shade to the pool. They also help to keep the shallow regions around the edge of the pool cool enough to stop them being the perfect, warm breeding ground for algae. This is the problem created by beaches, particularly if the pool becomes infested with Blanket weed or thread type algae.

Scirpus lacustris tab. Zebrinus, Houttynia cordata, water cress and Hippus vulgaris; planting in groups of 3, 5 or 7, you create much more natural impact.

4. Again, as with the deep water lilies, be wary of 'give-aways'. Do not accept hand-outs of marginals unless they come with written guarantees that they wont take over your pond in what seems less than 5 minutes.

Also if you have a small pond, beware of cheap plants, especially if they are big and being sold in clumps. Water plants seem to grow in inverse proportion to their relative cost.

5. Make sure you have properly identified the plant you are planting in your pool. If you bought it in a retail outlet, was it properly labelled? Because some of the rushes look remarkably alike in their infancy, but as they grow older some take to vandalising liners like they were gossamer. Nothing stands in their way.

6. Try to see what the plant looks like in a mature clump i.e. 3 to 4 years old. Will it be too tall? Or is the form suitable for the position you have in mind for it? It may be that as a mature plant, it has more to recommend it than just the flower. Some grassy plants in particular growing into large feather clumps can lend light and movement to an otherwise static and dull winter scene.

7. You will find that some varieties of plants, although quite capable of looking after their own needs, may need a certain amount of protection from bullying neighbours.

8. Some non-indigenous varieties do need frost protection in a hard winter e.g. varieties of Lobelia fulgens Queen Victoria often sold as L. cardinalis, Arum Lilies, Zantedeschia aethiopica. The variety of arum lily Zantedeschia aethiopica Crowood was always considered the hardiest.

Lobelia cardinalis grown primarily for its foliage with the hardy Physostegia virginiana.

Zantedeschia aethiopica growing in its own habitat in the Vleilande below Table Mountain, near Cape Town, South Africa.