Container Water Gardening

Water Gardening

Container water gardening,planting container garden,water garden containers is a very unusual and beautiful way to add uniqueness to your landscape garden. You no longer need a pond or large pond or create a big ordeal to have beautiful water garden plants as a focal point for your house or even as a small meditation area.

Location

Since there’s always evaporation of water you need to have the container garden located where you have easy access to water. It’s important to the plants that you maintain a constant water level in your container water garden.

You’ll need a sunny location or at least one that receives 5 to 6 hours of sun every day. Most water plants require this much sun. Be careful about the location of the container water garden if you have many trees on your property. Leaves will settle on the top of the garden, clog the system and cause damage to your plants and any fish you have in the container garden.

Size of the Container

In order to start your container garden you need a waterproof container with a minimum capacity of four gallons. Many people find unusual containers like horse troughs and claw foot bathtubs add whimsy to the garden.

If you have the container above ground, you need to take an additional step. When you put plants in the container, leave them in pots so you can easily remove them for wintering. They won’t last the winter in a container above ground and you’ll have to move them to a warmer area to protect them from freezing.

Starting the Water Gardening

Any time you use a wooden container you first need to line the container with plastic to prevent the wood from absorbing the water and leaking. You’ll need to fill the container with water. If your water is chlorinated, let it set a minimum of 24 hours, but best 48 hours for the chlorine to evaporate. If you live in a city that adds chloramines to the water, a form of chloride that doesn’t easily evaporate, you’ll need to find a water treatment at the garden center to remove the chlorine.

Prepare the container garden pots to hold plants that you’ll remove over the winter. Put a layer of soil in the bottom of clay pots, put the plants into the pot so they are at the correct planting depth and fill the rest of the pot. You’ll need to add a ¼ inch layer of sand or gravel so the soil stays in place. Thoroughly saturate the soil with water and put the pots in the container garden using bricks to adjust for the depth.

Maintenance of Container Water Garden

While a whole tub full of chlorine water isn’t good for your miniature ecosystem, it helps once the garden is in place. The chlorine in the tap water controls the growth of algae in your container water garden, so you can replace the water as it evaporates with tap water.

Types of Plants for Water Garden

Water lilies of course are the first plants that come to mind when you grow a container water garden. Other fine plants also do well in containers. Water hyacinths, water lettuce, taro and variegated horsetails are also great plants to use. You can also add fish and snails to your container garden.

Wintering

Some people don’t bother to winter over their plants but treat the plants as annuals or rather container gardening annuals and get new ones every year. If you decide you want to keep the plants, you can clean the lilies and store them in a dark, cool basement in moist sand for winter. Bring water hyacinths and other free-floating plants inside and store them in a tub of water in a sunny location.

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