Water Features

With a little imagination, almost any container can be turned into a water feature.

Plants settling in after a week, 18 June 2009

Same setup 3 months later

Species included:

• Alternanthera sessilis - purple leafed. Thriving, but slow growing in this setup.
• Bacopa monnieri - battling to compete with big-leafed plants
• Echinodorus grandiflorus - has many strategies for dominance. Where space allowed, new leaves lay flat on the water, shading anything underneath. Later, new leaves are large and easily shade out other plants. This spot is not ideal as it is not protected from the wind. New leaves sometimes wilted on the edges with heat and wind. Seems their natural habitat is sunny, but wind protected.
• Echinodorus palaefolius - stronger, more pointed leaves than E. grandiflorus. The green runner plant moving into the water column on the left corner is a clever strategy of this species. The source plant is about 40 cm back in the top left corner. These runners seek out areas of light where the produce leaves and flowers. This plant also suffers from wind/sun damage.
• Ludwigia perennis - does not emerge as vigorously as the other plants in this system.
• Ophiopogon japonicus (not in the water).

To date, it has been a long winter. It will be interesting to see what the summer heat produces.