So this will be the start of year 3 on my pond. I took it over in the fall of 2013 and primarily focused on the fish. I've added a little bit of structure here and there. At the same time I've tried to notice the vegetation in the pond.

90% of the perimeter is covered in a good 1-2' of arrow head. It's great. The frogs absolutely love it as do all of the fry. I've got a good few little section of purple Iris' which look really nice as well. I attempted to get some lily pads going, but only one section of them took.

I live really close to www.lilypons.com and have a good respect for their business. I want to be a little educated when I call them to ask what else would do good in my pond.

It's fairly shallow, so the 3' deep section extends fairly far into the little 1/4 acre pond. I don't want vegetation creeping into the deep areas so I want to be careful. At the same time, I'm trying to add some beauty through flowers.

My question is, other than lily pads, what else can I look at as effective cover for FHM and fry? Will lotus go into the deeper area? How about "creeping" style bog plants?

I dont want to run into the situation where the entire pond is covered and I can't fish it.

Lotus can romp at the rate of 6' per month, you might want to think twice about letting those loose on a large pond

If you can set up an enclosure in a picturesque spot with rocks or a curtain wall you could snip off any lotus runners that manage to find a way to sneak out

Regards, andy
http://www.pinterest.com/adavisus/pondering/

Water hyacinths have pretty blue flowers, but I would not recommend them for anything other than a micro pond. Take over way too easily!

Thanks for the info guys. I'm thinking I'll just go with the standard ole lily pads.

Take a gander at this document:

http://www.nonnativespecies.org/downloadDocument.cfm?id=416


http://homeguides.sfgate.com/noninvasive-floating-pond-plants-48587.html

Maybe something therein will be helpful for your goals.