Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Balance of plants in the environment new pond, what to plant?

hmmm, planting 7 acres, a few do's and dont's there, for sure.
Its useful to know your priority is fish, that indicates you can use plants that provide shade, shelter for fish and fry that improve water quality and add to diversity for them during their different phases.

Large water lilies are an obvious choice, take care to pick varieties with good flowering and growing habits, planted two to three feet deep they will create good cover from strong sun and shelter fish fry that rely on shallow waters... You might as well have good flowers on them, some varieties don't

Large marginal plants (they root in water putting foliage above the water level)
you might like to try: hardy canna, larger aquatic iris, pickerel weed, papyrus, cyperus, arundinaria, phragmites, sweet flag....

Ponside plants (bog plants which like damp, but not saturated soil)
You might choose these more for their 'ornamental' features, to create attractive reflections, mask ugly features, as a privacy screen etc: miscanthus, petasites, royal fern, ostrich feather fern, filipendula, arum lilies, bupthalmum

Some don'ts, if its a new pond, plant anything which could seriously overwhelm plantings, some invasives have growing habits which can outpace anything you can do to control it, lol... duckweed, azolla, large native cat tails, water hyacinth will in their way create problems which can be unmanageable...

The plants mentioned are 'safe bets' to form a start on such a large scale, you may well find your average nursery a bit daunting on prices, aquatic plants are a bit specialised and the growers season is rather short, dont expect the 'good stuff' to be available so easy on the cheap.... try to resist the 'deals' you can get on the likes of 'cat tails' as they are a vicious invasive which smother and destroy many a great location...
That sort of 'cheap deal' wont be so cheap to clear ten years down the line as the entire pond is swamped and infilled by them....

Many of these plants turn up on e-bay at better than retail prices, you could ship in batches of them from growers and 'phase' them in a few dozen at a time, aquatics have quite rapid growth rates and will surprise you how quickly they form beneficial clumps of foliage, take care to pick varieties which have the redeeming feature of being easy to divide, to move on to create new positions, or mulch, lol

Regards, Andy