Any thoughts about making some plant pots for hanging off my dock. The concept is to use 5 gallon buckets (maybe height cut in half to reduce weight) and simply suspended down into the water off my dock.

I suppose this could be used for any submerged or emergent plant. I plan to get some American Pondweed soon and thought this might be a good way to keep and eye on them until they get going AND I may try my hand at Lilies too if I can find a place nearby with the right varieties (which I don't even know what to look for yet).

Any reasons that this would not work and work well for APW or Lilies?

Would the pots need holes in them? My guess is, NO, but I thought the soil might need to breath. Maybe holes with some burlap-like material covering them so water can flow, but dirt stays in?

Hey Noel, I recently purchased 5 sets of hybrid lilies and planted them in the pond at scattered locations. They are doing well and even have a couple flowers about to blossom. Not sure if the source is a recommended vendor, but if you want the contact, shoot me a PM.

They expedite thru the postal service and the product comes in wet and ready to set.

I went with hardy hybrids that could withstand the southern winters and not get too aggressive. So far so good.

I put together two hanging baskets over the weekend out of necessity.

I picked up some pond weeds from a PB member which did not stay planted on the pond over night. I suspect crawdads uprooted them or maybe some carp that hitchhiked in with the minnows . At any rate, I netted the APW out and hung two baskets from the dock with hopes that they will be left alone to recover and potentially mature to seed the pond.

I drilled about twenty 1/2" holes in the bottom of a five gallon bucket, put a piece of window screen in the bottom followed by a piece of blue jean denim, followed by 3 inches of rich gravely soil. Then, I tucked the roots in the soil and placed some 2" creek rocks over the surface to help keep them in place. I also drilled about ten 1/2" holes around the side of the bucket just a few inches above the soil level so that the bucket would fill up as it was lowered into the pond and not "woosh" all the dirt up.

We'll see what happens.

Adding photos...Augie, your pond weed is doing fine in the buckets, but no sign of the others that were planted in the pond bottom...crawdads are a catch 22!

Yes, it looks nice and healthy.

My arrowhead has started blooming, but there's still no sign of any flowers on the mystery plant, so the waiting and wondering will continue for awhile.

I have added four more hanging baskets to the pond holding some Lilies. The APW from Augie is showing good signs of coming back in the two baskets that were left hanging through the winter. I hope to propogate the lilies (and APW) if they all do well and mulitply and eventually transfer them to the pond. The actual timing has more to do with knocking the crawdad population way back...may some plants can go in next year. I did set the craw trap out last friday night and caught 24 total, but about half og them were carrynig eggs...so, I only harvested half of them...tastee!

You could hang a beef from that thing!

Yeah, sometimes I do with what I have and I had that steel. The dock does sit a little lower in the water now!

Making do is a good skill to have.

I like the big rocks in the back ground around the overflow pipe. Good looking dock also. I hoping to get some of those plants going around my place. I put what I believe is Illinois pondered in this year. I have it growing in a creek behind my place.